Team Whiskey High Sierras shoot 2024
I went to a 3D archery shoot in a ski resort in Bear Valley (roughly between Lake Tahoe and Yosemite) https://highsierraarcheryshoot.com/ A 3D shoot is when you walk a pre-determined trail and shoot targets that tend to be animals instead of a paper. You score based on how close it is to a kill zone. We drove to Arnold, California the night before so I could start early in the morning.
I had no idea what this event entailed apart from the website and some instagram posts which in retrospect were incredibly vague. One concerning thing is they don't write any time estimate for the hike (it is assumed to be all day). I thought we would take the cable car up the mountain and then walk down. I did not know we would walk up even more and then down twice. It was definitely extreme-bragging-rights-only hike instead of something fun.
The shots were incredibly difficult and I completely missed my target half the time. It was often a tiny coyote statue between two trees 50 meters away, or angled shots which I did not know how to compensate for using a recurve bow. Every single archer we saw had a compound bow and even they occasionally missed. Combined with extreme hiking in 30 degree weather I would say it was a huge pain.
I liked
- The other shooters were friendly and understanding. One guy called my carbon fiber riser a trad bow, which I still find hilarious.
- The views were great!
- The shots were difficult and humbling but an interesting experience
I disliked
- I would definitely appreciate a map of the route or at least estimate of difficulty beforehand. There was nothing on the website except "there are 3 routes of various difficulties". I asked in person and just learned it's about 4 miles. It took us over 4 hours to climb up and down the whole thing. Maybe some elevation warning next time? To be fair it as the most difficult course (our reasoning was: If we do the hardest now, we don't need to do the easy ones later) and I definitely think the easier ones are fully compatible with recurve.
- Honestly this is on me, but I strongly dislike shooting animals.
- I realize it said rain or shine event but at 30 degrees celsius I should have bailed.
- The drinking. The name of the shoot is team whiskey and they offered whiskey shots at the beginning. A lot of guys had beer too. This was incredibly concerning to me since everyone has a deadly weapon there.
Best shot was in the morning
I felt so bad about this. I don't think I can hunt given it causes huge (animal) suffering if you miss.
I lost basically my whole set of arrows and I can say 3D archery is completely different from target archery, because you need to figure out a lot of things on the go (accounting for elevation, shooting between narrow spots, good positioning) and I did not learn any of that. It was fun! Never again!