Things are getting fun now. The first of the gear for Mission Dall’s Sheep is starting to arrive. It will be exciting to break open the boxes and lay my hands on the first of the “new stuff” that I’ll be counting on for comfort, possibly success, and maybe even survival on the hunt!
Because they are right in town here, my buddies at Federal dropped off the first few boxes of test ammo to put through the rifle once it’s built. That’s on next week’s agenda. I want to try every type of hunting 30-06 load they make (and that’s a bunch) through the gun this summer to really find its sweet spot.
I took in all the great advice offered by members, guides and others on boots. It finally came down to a decision between some true hard-shell, plastic alpine mountaineering boots and the Cabela’s Alaskan Hunter made by Meindl.
Truth be told, for the country we’ll be hunting on this trip, the mountaineering boots would probably be a better choice, but I went with the Cabela’s model because they will be a better long term investment. I expect I’ll get many, many years of service from them on hunts of all kinds, while the technical mountaineering boots would sit in the closet waiting the next above-tree-line hunt that might never come.
If you want, you can check out the boots.
When I went to the store to try on the boots before ordering, I naturally did some looking around. I went up to the camping section just to see what packs they had on hand. I was pretty set on a semi-custom internal frame pack from a maker who does a lot of work for military snipers. But during our interview for the last MDS video blog installment, Alaska Guide Jason Lesmeister said the Cabela’s external frame packs are still pretty much the “standard” for the heavy work up there.
The store had one all set up and I tried it on. As luck would have it, this pack was adjusted perfectly for me – it was one of the most comfortable things I’ve ever put on my back. I even had my petite wife hang on it for a while and the load felt comfortably balanced between my shoulders and hips. Plus, the price was less than half of what I was considering spending on the custom job, so … when I placed the order, there was a Cabela’s Alaskan Guide pack and frame on it, too.
The physical training continues to go well. Emerson and I are in a good routine between cardio and weightlifting and forcing ourselves to take off one day per week. I’ve also been hiking regularly with the 40 pounds of rock salt strapped to my old pack frame.
On February 1, I started at 237 pounds. Goal is to be at 190-195 by early August. I weighed in Sunday at the end of 10 weeks and the scale said 210 pounds, so I’ve dropped 27 pounds with another 18 to go! I’m doing at least an hour of running on the cardio days, burning about 1100 calories per work out. On strength training days I burn about 850 calories during the workout, but they tell me by using low weights and high reps the body continues to burn more calories during recovery, so that’s what I’m doing.
Shoot straight –
Bill Miller
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