10/25/2026
A Wyoming hunter nearly died after spending 10 months trying to recover a bighorn ram after it fell 500 feet down a cliff. On October 29, 1989, just two days before the season closed, Steve Coy finally found a legal ram after spending most of the fall searching the Absaroka Mountains. He had waited years to draw the tag, and when the wounded ram disappeared onto a narrow ledge, he went after it wearing rubber boots meant for mud, not mountain climbing.
Coy followed the blood trail across a cliff so steep he had to shuffle sideways against the rock. At one point he wrapped himself around a pine tree while his body hung over open air. He eventually found the ram about 10 feet away, fired his last cartridge, and watched it tumble roughly 500 feet down the mountain. Then the snow moved in, Coy became stranded overnight, and temperatures dropped while he sat in jeans, a denim jacket, a light vest and a cowboy hat feeding a tiny fire. Around 2 a.m. he heard something grunting in the timber and knew grizzlies had recently been reported nearby. Search-and-rescue crews found him the next morning close to hypothermia.
Getting the ram back turned into an entirely different battle. Climbers couldnβt reach it, a helicopter plan fell apart, and Coy returned several times through the winter just to look at the cliff. Finally, 10 months later, he came back with friends, ropes and four homemade ladders. Coy descended a swaying 75-foot ladder, rappelled through several more drops and eventually found the scattered remains with the skull and horns still intact.
His legs locked up during the climb back and his friends had to pull him over the final ledge. But after nearly a year, Steve Coy finally brought his bighorn ram home. Iβve heard plenty of stories about hunters going the extra mile to recover an animal, but 10 months, homemade ladders and a 500-foot cliff is on an entirely different level.
β Stephen Ziegler
Outdoor writer | Rack Junkies Podcast
