It was not as if I did not know sheep hunting could be hard. I had already bagged all four types of North American wild sheep with my bow. But as I crawled up that snow-covered bluff, I could not remember so much discomfort.

It was all my fault. I wanted a Dall sheep bigger than the 32-inch, tight-curl ram I had taken a few years before. So here I was, climbing near-vertical terrain in the Mackenzie Mountains for the second time in a decade.

There are outfitters, and then there are outfitters. I was with one of the best. Duane Nelson had been a good friend since my first Dall sheep adventure 10 years before, and I had hunted with him almost every year thereafter in his game-rich area. I had always bagged moose or caribou, and I had always dreamed of hunting sheep again. But I had not dreamed of tackling a mountain so severe.

My ordeal took shape by accident. Lane Dyck was Nelson’s top backpack guide at the time. Lane and I were planning to hike somewhere, but we had barely unloaded the bush plane and settled into base camp. We had not yet studied maps of terrain within striking distance of Nelson’s powerful river-running jet boat. Then four tiny white dots appeared on a rock pile directly above our tents. I mean directly. I had to crane my neck to see them high on the mountain that loomed over camp. The largest ram popped into focus through my 45X spotting scope, and I sucked in my breath. Even at more than a mile, his massive 1¼-curl horns looked huge.

“Nobody hunts up there,” Duane explained as he joined us and inspected the almost sheer rock wall rising thousands of feet toward the sheep. “That mountain stands on end. We’ve ridden all around it, and there’s no way to the top with a horse.”

Bingo! Lane and I looked at each other, looked at the mountain, and grinned. Minutes later, we were assembling our backpack gear: A dome tent built for two. Enough freeze-dried food for a week. One change of warm clothes apiece. First-aid kit, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and compact butane stove. Optics and camera gear. By nightfall, we were ready to assault the mountain.

Most Dall sheep hunts begin with a floatplane ride to a remote location. Even from the comfort of a bush plane, sheep country looks steep and difficult.

The next day was torture, plain and simple. Our sheep mountain turned upward almost 90 degrees, a series of bluffs stair-stepping toward the sky. Twisted bushes and wind-ravaged trees clung to shale slides and ledges, but the landscape was largely bare. There had to be basins up high with grass for sheep, but we could not see them.

Eight hours later, Lane and I inched along a ledge across a snow-dusted slab of rock. We flopped over the top like played-out rainbow trout, rested a minute, and looked around.

Six Dall rams stood on a grass-covered hill 200 yards away!

The next instant, freezing fog and snow blotted out the scene.

Lane and I snooped around, found a flat patch of grass, and pitched our tiny tent. The wind was picking up, and visibility was less than 50 yards. We crawled into the tent, unrolled our sleeping bags, and waited out the storm.