My first dream of hunting dall sheep occurred when I first picked up a hunting rifle 45 years ago.

This summer, at the age of 61, I booked a dall sheep hunt with Alaska Outfitting while at the SCI Hunter’s Convention in Reno.

Bill Stevenson owns and runs the business, and his lodge and operation is near Palmer, Alaska.

At the age of 61, I needed to get physically prepared to be able to accomplish such a feat. At the time I signed up, I didn’t know how rugged the Chugach Mountains were, so I joined the Columbia Court Club and my trainer, Cathy Gertsch, put me on a rigorous weight-training program and a cardiovascular workout on the exercise machines.

I also walked five miles every day and did some running to get into shape. While walking, I wore a 50-pound weight vest to get used to wearing a backpack since this hunt was going to require one.

I did the training for around 10 weeks before the hunt. Little did I know that my success in the hunt would be due to the physical preparation I put in. There are no easy dall sheep hunts, and I only wanted to hunt the sheep once so I wanted to get physically ready for the ordeal.

Ordeal isn’t even close – it was like boot camp. I was just hoping I hadn’t bit off more than I could chew.

On August 17, Durk Irwin, an orthodontist with practices in Hermiston and Pendleton, and I flew from Portland to Anchorage. The next morning we met one of the guides, Sterling Mize, who is a cotton farmer near Lubbock, Texas, but works as a guide in Alaska during August and September. Also joining us in Anchorage was Durk’s dental school friend Brian from Utah.

All three of us were going dall sheep hunting for the first time. We drove for about two hours northeast of Anchorage to the lodge near the Matanuska Glacier, which is 26 miles long. After introductions were made we spent time sighting in our rifles and packing our bags with all the essential gear, nothing more and nothing less.

We didn’t bring any cotton clothes – our hunting apparel had to be light weight with the ability to dry out fast and wick perspiration to the outside. A good pair of GORE-TEX rain gear and boots were also necessities.

We flew into our locations individually in a Super Cub airplane, Durk and Brian to the Wrangells and me to the Chugach. My guide was 40-year-old Sterling, and he looked like he had been chiseled out of rock with strong legs and a great upper body physique. If Sterling was Hercules, I was built like a toothpick.

Around 9:30 p.m., we boarded our Super Cubs and flew into the very rugged Chugach Mountains, where the pilot of each plane landed us at 7,600 feet on a snow field where we unloaded. Bill Stevenson made us unpack, going through our items saying “you won’t need this, you won’t need that.” Being as light as possible is crucial because if a sheep is taken, the meat will be de-boned, its cape and horns removed, and it all is added to the packs.

Sterling and I set up our two-man tent and get supper before retiring for the night, which came at 11 p.m.

As we were eating our freeze-dried meals with coffee, candy bars and nuts, Sterling told me this was his first time in all his sheep-hunting trips he had been able to pitch his tent on flat ground.

The next morning we woke up at 7, made breakfast, and got our supplies packed to start looking for sheep. Not until we left camp did I fathom how rugged and steep the mountains were. We had to watch the placement of every step – breaking an ankle isn’t something you want to do out there.

Right away we saw four sheep way below our vantage point. Our pilot had said there was a group of six sheep that had been in the drainage all summer and they were always together. We wanted to make sure we found the right group because there was at least one legal full curl among them.

After looking on both sides of the mountain, we decided they weren’t the ones we were searching for, so we hiked down a long ridge covered with loose shale rocks, going across ice and snow. Nothing was flat. This was the most rugged travel of any of my hunting trips anywhere.

In three hours time, we were near the end of the ridge. We looked down to the right where we saw the group of six we were after. The only legal ram was lying down and the rest were feeding about 1,000 yards below us.

Sterling made the plan of attack and we traveled down a side canyon to get closer. Once we got within 600 yards of them, a few mountain goats came up from another canyon and spooked our sheep.

We took off our packs and tried to figure out where the sheep were going next. They went over the ridge they were on, and Sterling said if we could get to that ridge we might catch them at the bottom or on the next ridge. He also said we had to move as fast as possible to get there in time, but we also had to move quietly.

Running through the rocks was impossible, so we very carefully made our way to the ridge. As we reached the top, our six sheep were standing together on the next ridge, just as we thought.

Sterling told me to use my shooting sticks, but I had a better rest on a large rock. I laid my 7-300 on it and asked how far away he thought they were. His range finder said 320 yards, and since my rifle was sighted in three inches high at 100 yards it was dead on at 300.

I held for the right front shoulder, then pulled the trigger.

The sheep jumped up, then moved slowly below the other sheep, so Sterling told me to shoot again. The second shot dropped him, and he proceeded to roll 350 yards down the hill.

The celebration was on. My dream of shooting a dall sheep was realized, but the hard part of getting it off the mountain was just beginning.

Sterling told me to stay put and he would go back, get both packs, and be back in 30 minutes. When he did return he had his pack on his back and mine on his front. What an animal this guide was.

We then moved down to the sheep, took pictures, de-boned the meat, removed the cape, cut off the horns and looked for a flat place to spend the night.

The next morning we emerged from our tent at 9, and had a big breakfast, knowing the hard work was just beginning and we’d need all the energy we could muster to get back to the primitive airstrip before dark.

We packed all of our camping gear, food, meat, the cape and horns and began our torturously rugged climb out.

We had to travel across five ridges and up and down five deep canyons to make the last pitch downhill to the airstrip. In the last pitch down, a packer came up and helped us lighten our packs. The hike took a total of eight hours, and the plane picked us up at 9:30 p.m.

I started and ended the sheep hunt with a pack on my back, and if I hadn’t prepared myself physically, I would have never made it. The preparation wasn’t easy, but the reward of accomplishing it was the greatest thrill of my 45 years of hunting.

The sheep turned out to be 6-1/2 years old with 35-inch horns over 15-inch bases. My partners who hunted the Wrangells shot a 37.5-inch sheep at 30 yards and a 39.5-inch sheep at 300 yards.

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Graham Derbyshire is a Hermiston resident who spends his time between hunting trips farming and helping with the Stanfield Track and Field team.