I'm going to Pakistan and going up the highway toward Islamabad. Next I’ll come off the highway and make a three day trek to the far mountains toward Afghanistan. I’ll be hunting an animal called the cashmere Markhor (a bovid mammal closely related to a wild goat). In the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece from Greek mythology, the goat he was after was a Markhor like the one I'm planning to hunt. Taking a Markhor has been a dream of mine for the last 25 years, ever since I first heard of that animal that lives in the Himalayan Mountains. So, I'm really excited that I'm finally going to have the opportunity to hunt this animal.
This hunt will be a 100-percent all-in adventure hunt. In my book, hunters are explorers. They want to know what’s over the next ridge, what’s beyond the next valley, and what’s past the horizon. I've gone past a lot of horizons in my lifetime of hunting, and hunting this animal is like looking over a new ridge to find a new animal that I've only heard about. I like going into the unknown, and I like facing new challenges. This will be an all-new different type of hunting in a place that’s very different from any kind of hunting I've ever done. Just getting to the place to start hunting will be a challenge, and I'm sure getting back home will be a challenge too. I've got to face all these challenges knowing the first five rules of hunting - safety, safety, safety, safety and safety. When I put all the challenges of just getting to the place to hunt, climbing the mountains, finding the Markhor, hopefully harvesting a Markhor and then returning home again, this should be one of the most exciting hunts I’ll go on in 2016.
I really like being challenged, I like facing difficult situations and testing myself against tough terrain and new places. On hunts like this, I compete against myself. I want to find out if I'm capable of making this kind of hunt physically, mentally and emotionally. Also, I want to see if I can be successful hunting an animal I've only heard of but never seen.
