 | the bench my first deer was on...note the doe on the bear trail
|
Again we were blessed with a sunny day, but the ice lay thick on the grass and rocks in the trails we hiked up behind camp, wide trails beaten down by generations of grizzlies traversing the slopes. We climbed and stopped on several high points to glass the mountain valleys surrounding the bay. We saw several deer, and the bucks were on the move looking for does, a good sign. The sun finally cleared the southern mountains, and we moved to a hillside in the sun to warm up, watching the deer. I was amazed to see a tiny speck moving down from the very pinnacle of a nearby mountain; it was a buck, moving between drainages, in spite of the deep snow up high. We also noticed an injured buck way up high that must have broken a front leg while traversing the rocky summit. We saw more than 20 deer, mostly bucks, but none was larger than the island`s typical 2x2. The sun was setting at 5:00, and we packed up to head back down to camp (oh, do I hate going DOWN).
|