We got about 3/4 of the way up the mountain before Kyle called for a stop. We were both done, he was exhausted (he just got off night shift) and I was cooking. We stopped by a creek and the dogs were in seventh heaven! Kyle also decided to wear his new boots up and had some nice blisters emerging (yuck!). We dropped our packs, took off our boots and ate with our feet in the creek. After about an hour of resting we put our boots back on with some clean socks and decided to walk the rest of the valley with just the binos, camera and defender. Thank fully once your back there, the valley is not very long or wide so its easy to glass with binos. When we came up onto an open area Kyle announces that he sees elk across the valley. So we found some bushes to sit in and glass them. There were 10 elk in total and they had seen us. They were feeding above the tree line and one of them was a bull...a very mature bull, the others were 4 calves and the rest cows. So we watched them and scanned the rest of the valley for more signs of life and we eventually found a lone billy that came out to sun himself in the last rays of evening. We didn't stay long to watch the elk, the bull was getting pretty agitated with us and pushed the cows a little more up the mountain. We headed back to the bikes and Kyle decided we should head back to the truck.
By the time we got to the bikes I was not feeling so good, I had a pounding headache. So we jumped on the bikes and rode down the mountain. It would have been nice....minus the headache...and it was definitely a lot faster then hiking down. While we were heading out the animals were starting to come out. On our way down the mountain we seen a massive Bull Moose, a mule deer doe and her fawn and a whitetail doe. Once we were at the truck we cooked up a mountain house and Kyle let me eat first to see if it would help with the headache...it didn't...it made me nauseous, so i didn't eat. Kyle drove us down to the valley in the dark and we set up camp..or i should say he set up camp. I was basically useless by this time, I had every piece of clothing packed on me and I was still shivering. Once the tent was ready i climbed in my sleeping bag and instantly passed out. 
The next morning I felt refreshed but still a little fatigued. Kyle decided we wouldn't do any major hiking for the day. So we drove the valleys, we drove down one that we know well; it was washed out so we jumped out and walked a ways in. This time we ran into 2 cow moose, an owl, and glassed 2 more goats. After this we headed home, slowly, taking the long way around through the bush instead of heading back to the main roads. 
Nikita & Kyle
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