Sheep Hunt Day 5

This morning started off not according to plan. Waking up to answer nature's call about 3 a.m. found me socked in with clouds. When it was time to get up for the day at 5, still socked in. Knowing I would not be able to glass with such conditions I slept in. At 7 the clouds showed no signs of letting up. Without anything better to do I turned on the phone to check the quota status. Season still open after two days. A good sign. It also meant no one had been seeing rams. I clicked over to send my wife a status text that I was okay and recieved tragic news. At 8,500 feet in my bivy sack on a sheep mountain I learned that a very good friend had been killed in a rock climbing accident yesterday. One wonders how they will react to such news finding it out so suddenly without any of the emotion involved in learning it directly from another human being. The only sound was a light wind whisping through the spruce trees where I was camped. Perhaps the lonliest most indifferent sound in nature. Disbelief was the initial reaction. I decided to crawl out of the tent, make breakfast and contemplate my next move. Sheep were a very distant thought in my mind now. The fog lifted about 10 and I headed up the mountain. Somehow I felt a strange closeness to Amos, my departed friend being in the high country than I might have down below. The day he died we were both on mountains doing what we liked to do. For now I simply reflected on the good times we'd had chasing trout and ducks on the Madison and Gallatin rivers. There would be time enough to face the tragedy of his death down below. I knew the last thing Amos would want me to do is not finish this hunt and abandon the possibility of harvesting a ram this year. I would be headed down tomorrow anyway. With a heavy heart I slung my rifle and backpack to make the most of the day that was left. Much of the rest of the day was fairly pleasant as the clouds broke. I ran into another hunter who'd just barely missed crossing paths with a sow griz and two cubs. He looked a little white in the face. About 5 the clouds rolled in with rain and that set the stage for the rest of the night. Gaps in the clouds provided a few moments of spectacular alpenglow on peaks in the north end of the park. Crawling into my bivy an hour after dark, thunder clapped and soon the bottom fell out of the clouds. Rain all night.