After finishing work on Thursday, I loaded up the car and headed to the hills of Kakapotahi for four days of hunting, sightseeing, and everything in between. It was going to be a perfect getaway.

I arrived at the hut around 9:30 p.m. but found someone already fast asleep inside. Not wanting to disturb them, I decided to push on, aiming to camp just below the bush line so I could start my morning hunt in prime terrain.

However, around 10:30 p.m., I lost the track and spent the next hour searching for it. Instead, I found myself in steep terrain, far from where I needed to be. With a heavy pack, rifle, bow, and my dog, managing the situation was becoming too much. I decided to turn around and find some flat ground to set up camp until daylight.

While descending through some steep terrain, I slipped and slid down, catching my foot on a tree root. The adrenaline masked the pain, so I kept pushing on, following the main river valley in hopes of finding the track. No luck.

Eventually, the pain from my ankle kicked in hard. I climbed back into the bush and finally found the track I had been searching for, but it wasn’t exactly where the map had marked it. I laid out my mat and tried to sleep, but the pain in my ankle kept me up most of the night.

By morning, after a long, sleepless night and with my ankle in worse shape, I decided to activate my ResQLink 400 PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) around 10:00 a.m. It was a tough call since I wasn’t in immediate life-threatening danger, but there was no way I could hike the four hours back to my car in my condition.

The rescue team arrived and winched me out from where I was, even helping to gather my seemingly endless pile of gear. Two months later, my ankle is almost back to full strength, and I’m back in the hills doing what I love.

Thanks to the rescue team from both Jim and Ruger!