[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP5524.swf, 585, 473 [/swf]
With the boat in the water, we headed back to camp to grab our gear to head out. You look up on the slope on Slope Mtn (name isn’t on a map) to that sunny patch, those bare rock outcroppings is where we were to spend the day. The 700′ vertical climb in less than 3/4 of a mile was simply brutal for me. If that wasn’t bad enough with the 600mm/D3x on my shoulder going up that loose shale, the rain made it official. It was a bitch of a climb for this old man!
This would be the last time we would see the face of Slope Mtn for two days! The biologists flew up the mtn just as nimbly as our quarry with Jake right behind them. Then for the next five hours, Jake & I sat in the damp fog and rain, out in the open on that slope looking at rocks. Our quarry requires sun and we surely had none. So wet and sore, we worked our way back down the slope wondering if we had traveled ten hours up the Haul Road for nothing.
Photo captured by D3x, 24-70AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film