Red Cap Adventures

My red baseball cap wasn’t a good luck charm, nor would it fend off evil spirits. It advertised a product I had no interest in, but the logo was cool. What made the cap special were the five years it had perched on my head.

- Ace Sommerfeld

It had roamed Alaska, Wisconsin, and Montana at a formative time in my life. The lessons I’d learned in those years set the foundation for an adventurous and diversified life in the outdoors.

Back when the cap was brand new and bright red, I went on a solo hunt for Dall sheep in the Kenai Mountains south of Anchorage, Alaska. The significance of this hunt went beyond stalking a ram. It would determine whether I could handle myself alone in an unforgiving environment. Questions about my ability to be a mountain man arose on an earlier mountain-goat hunt with a veteran of the cliffs named Buck Green. After hiking two days it became obvious I’d have to change my lifestyle if I wanted to keep up with a guy who was 18 years older than me. He convinced me to quit smoking and get in shape.

“Huntin’ sheep n’ goats is 85% being in shape, and 15% heart. Ya gotta have both up here,” he said as we skinned out a billy he had beaten me to.

Kicking the habit and getting in shape were easy.

I left the truck on a September morning to find out if the 15% heart was in me. Fourteen hours later I shot at a ram standing 40 yards away on the brink of a mountain. The ram disappeared before I could shoot again, so I slid off a lingering snowbank and scrambled to the spot where the ram had been standing. My first Dall sheep lay motionless a short distance below the crest.