Get Lost

Pack trains servicing deer and elk camps pound the 2,616 miles of established trails from 66 trailheads. Still, a million and a half acres remain free of all paths, save those traveled by big game. From canyon floor to pine, fir, and spruce forests and 14 clear-water lakes, to high meadows and rugged spires reaching to 10,000 feet, the Frank Church boasts a variety of plants and animals. It teems with life; but by the time you reach its heart, you're consumed by its space.

"There's enough room here for any hunter," says Travis Bullock, who with wife Brenda runs Mile High Outfitters. Headquartered in Challis, Mile High operates in two areas, one deep in the Frank Church and accessible only by air charter. "Our other camp is on what we call the Front Range. It's easier to access, and a good bet for late hunts."

I spent a week with Travis and Brenda and sons Charlie and Clay. The remote airstrip lay so deep in a canyon that the Cessna dipped below the rims miles before touchdown. Then we packed up the mules and headed upstream on a trail that was bald from the strike of steel shoes. By mid-afternoon we'd left the river to wind up a steep nose. It took us over a ridge to a lovely wooded hollow, suspended below peaks marching to pale purple horizons in every direction.

"We'll hunt from here for a couple of days," said Travis. "Then we can try a spike camp. One is just 10 miles upriver." Distance in the Frank Church might as well be measured in fortnights. You'll find plenty of game if you travel; but you'll travel far enough only if you've scheduled plenty of time. "A lot of hunters come expecting to shoot game a few yards from camp," Travis grinned. "It has happened, but we commonly travel many miles to find the big bucks and bulls sportsmen have in mind on a wilderness trip."

In the next week, I saw many elk and mule deer. I passed up an easy shot at a raghorn bull early on, and never saw a bigger set of antlers. Warm weather had sent the old bulls into cover. However, I managed to kill a fat four-point mule deer one evening, after spotting him in open timber from horseback and sneaking to within 75 yards. One shot from my Winchester 94 in .356 put him down for keeps.

The kill was almost anticlimactic. Watching dawn warm the ridges, and dusk color the distant peaks, I relished the scope of this place. Testing the iron in my legs on slopes arching from canyon's dark belly to snowy rock obscured by cloud, I met my match. Roaring white torrents below and silence broken only by wind in the crags mesmerized me. Sleeping under white canvas, splitting lodgepole with a sharp ax and snugging old saddle leather against the ribs of a mountain pony can be done just about anywhere. But, like hunting, they're most memorable in wilderness.