On day two, we drove around in the bottoms and circled and glassed the same set of mountains as the day before. It was basically a big ridge that stretched for about 15 miles with basins dropping off of each side. We spotted a group of six rams up near the top of the ridge. We were too far away to adequately judge the rams and since we didn't have any other mature rams spotted, we decided to climb up for a closer look. Along the way, we had to slip past some ewes/lambs off to the sides.
As we were making the final push toward the rams, I thought we would slow down and crawl the last few yards to peak over at the rams and put my spotting scope on them to judge and evaluate them. Unfortunately, the guide had other ideas and he just walked upright to the top! This spooked the six rams. He motioned for me to join him and started yelling, "Shoot, shoot, shoot!" I slipped up to his side crawling on my knees and saw that the rams were already running away at 350 yards. I absolutely wasn't going to just shoot a random ram and find out how big it was after it was dead so I didn't shoot. The rams ran a long distance and finally stopped at 1200 yards. We looked at them with my spotting scope and there were three big rams in the group of six. Unbelievably, the guide was upset with me for not shooting. I told him he should not have walked upright to the top while wearing a black vest and sky-lining himself. I also told him I didn't travel half-way across the world to shoot a ram that we had not evaluated. A 50/50 chance of shooting one of the bigger running rams wasn't a mistake I was going to make. He relaxed and we followed after the rams but never did catch up to them again. We hiked the rest of the day at 17,000 feet while glassing lots of other sheep but didn't find any big rams.
The next several days, we continued to look for the six rams and also drove to some other mountainous areas and glassed a lot of country. We did not see any big rams and turned down many small and medium-sized rams. Meanwhile, Mel and his group were hunting closer to the Chinese border. Mel shot at and hit a ram on day five. The guides recovered it on day six. It was a nice looking heavy ram of about 54 inches. Mel thought that the guides should take me to the area he had been hunting so that became the new plan. He said with the way I could hike, that I should be able to get on some of the bigger rams he had seen from a distance. With only two days remaining, I switched guides and went with the two brothers that had been guiding Mel.
On day seven in the new area, we spotted a nice 56" ram early in the morning but the guides thought we could do better so I nervously passed. Late in the afternoon, we spotted 12 rams with a couple of really big rams among them. We spotted them from the truck at 1500 yards. We sat in the truck and waited for them to forget about us. They finally relaxed and just fed out of sight. I opened my door and started to get out of the truck for a stalk but the guide started the truck and took off! I pleaded with him to stop but he ignored me and kept driving. When we got directly below the now spooked, running rams, he turned off the truck and said to shoot the fourth ram from the hood of the truck. I got out but the rams were running at 900 yards and all balled up in a group so I didn't shoot. I kept my composure but was screaming inside! We could have easily got on the rams on foot without them knowing we were coming. These guides are used to truck hunting, the hunters wounding rams at long range and then recovering the rams with out the hunter the next day! I wasn't going to hunt that way. It got dark and we headed back to camp. It was a long quiet ride.
The last morning, we headed to the next drainage over because the guides thought the rams would head that way. I agreed. We arrived early and it was still dark. At first light, I spotted some rams but it was a different group of small and medium-sized rams. The valley forked and we figured the rams we were looking for would be in the left fork. We climbed on foot up the ridge that separated the two forks. After a while, we spotted the big rams in the bottom of the left fork but they were a mile away. They started to climb up the opposing ridge slowly but surely. After they crested the top, I wanted to get the wind in our favor and hike up an adjacent bowl and peak over the top at them and get on them. To me, it seemed like an easy plan and I was more than up for the hike. When we got back down to the truck, the guide insisted that we should not hike but should drive back around the mountain to the place we had spotted them from the night before with the truck. I disagreed and told him I was not going to hunt from the truck and that it would take a longer amount of time to drive all the way back around the mountains to the other side than it would take to just hike from our current location. He wouldn't listen and I was not happy. At this point, I was done and just told him to take me back to camp. He refused both options and drove all the way around. Once over there, we did not relocate the rams!
We then drove up another valley and parked the truck to glass. Seeing nothing, we continued up the valley until the accelerator pedal separated from the cable, leaving us stranded for a while. The guides found some wire and made a temporary fix and we continued. We drove up on a knob and glassed the surrounding mountains. We spotted some rams just below the top of a 21,000 foot peak a few miles away. There was no way to approach them because the mountain was too nasty and there were other sheep between them and us. The only option was to wait until evening approached to see if they would drop down to feed.
About 2PM, the wind picked up significantly and the rams decided to drop down from their exposed position. They dropped down and away from us. We drove a little ways further up the valley. While driving, I told the guides that I did not want to drive all the way to the rams and spook them with the truck. I insisted that we hike when we could. After a while, we parked the truck and continued up the valley on foot. After about a mile of hiking, I spotted the rams up on the shoulder of the mountain ahead of us and to our right. We started a stalk up the mountain. We got to 750 yards, which is a make-able shot with my rifle but I thought we could crawl another 200 yards. We carefully closed the distance to 550 yards and picked out the best ram in the group. I shot the ram and he went down. I had to finish him with a second shot when we walked up on him but he didn't get away. He measured 57". Smaller than the rams I wanted to go after earlier in the day but a good ram with just two hours left on my last hunting day. A check of my electronic gear showed we were at 17,552 feet.