Hunting for a Pamir Ibex.

Once again, I hunted with Yuri Matisson on Pamir. At last we had happened to reached the Belangrik gorge where the river with the same name flowed. It was a real Lost World. There was nothing except wild animals and high mountains. I spent few days in the Base camp, located on the height 4000 masl. That time I needed for acclimatization. Then we should hike 20 km more to the next mobile camp and to go for hunting from there. My goal was to get the trophy with horns not less than 120cm. After 7 hours hiking, we accommodated in the second camp. Nasreddin Musaev- the 71 years old hunter, who worked with Yuri for many years, met us there. After that hunt I was going to go with him to Jirgatal and to hunt for a Gissaro-Alai ibex.   I accommodated in a single tent. The temperature at night was about -15o C. The weather in the afternoon was sunny and windless. Nasreddin told us that monitored the group of ibexes, led by the old male, with 130cm horns. But animals crossed the ridge and moved to the next valley just above our arrival. We followed them. Our group rose the upper ground 4400 m and spotted a big group of ibexes. There were not less than 50 individuals. They all were different ages including the big ones. We shared into two groups. And the smallest one began to approach the herd. The wind blew into our backs what was not good. It took us a couple of hours to cover 5km distance. We managed to crawl up being invisible to 550 meters. Ibexes laid down to have rest but were on their guard. We spied the biggest male, in the center of the group but it was closed by other animals. Suddenly they smelled us and ran to the mountains all together. It was impossible to fire because the needed male was constantly covered by others. And in a split second I caught it in the crosshairs and shot. The shooting distance was about 600 meters. I got it. Then we rose to the place where it laid. It happened on the height 4800 masl. The traditional photo session. The length of the one horn was 128cm and the second one was shorter because of the broken tip. That day we hiked 20km and crossed twice the ridge of 4400 m high. It was dark when we came back tired but happy.