# High Country / Alpine Archery connection ???



## c3hammer (Sep 20, 2002)

Does anyone know the history of Alpine Archery and High Country?

I bought a High Country Sniper, one of the first all fast flight harnessed bows available, back in 1989. I thought shortly there after they split into Alpine Archery, which stayed in Idaho, and High Country which moved down south back east somewhere.

Another fellow at my club thinks Alpine Archery was first then High Country, but I really can't remember.

Any bits of the real story there would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Pete


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## lunchbox0385 (Sep 30, 2007)

im pretty sure high country was first a friend of mine used to be a rep for them in the early to mid 80's and i dont rember much talk of alpine till the late 80's...


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## Twang! (Apr 20, 2002)

*HC/Alpine*

Spencer & Bob we're partners in early 80's.For some reason they split.Spencer moved HC to dunlap,tn. and Bob started Alpine a few years later in Idaho.


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## DRT (Jul 9, 2007)

Alpine was after High Country the way i understand it. I shoot the High Country TSS and it great but i had to replace a cam (due to me droping it off a mountain) and i sent it to dunlap, tn. so i guess the factory is there.


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## Bow_Rep (Sep 14, 2006)

High Country bows first hit the pro shops in the Upper Midwest in 1985 with a large diameter E-wheel bow about 40" A2A and a sand cast riser. XI copied it the next year in a lighter weight die-cast riser bow (substantially less cost) and Pearson offered the Spoiler in '87.

To my knowledge, Alpine was after 1987.


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## jwshooter11 (Aug 18, 2006)

Yep! Alpine hit the scene in 1988!


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## pintojk (Jan 31, 2003)

*okay HC and Alpine fans .....*

what other bow company "came out" of Alpine ..... :wink:

Hint ..... "SM"

PintoJK


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## tbreed725 (Aug 31, 2007)

i dont much about theyre connection to each other but i live right down from Dunlap TN where the High Country shop is .


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## montanaarchery (Mar 11, 2003)

Let me see if I remember how it went. There was Bob Procter, Dave Powers, Jerry Johnson I don't about Spenc at that time. These three had HC in Idaho, After a while they sold to Spenc and all three started their own companies. Jerry started Golden Circle Bows, Dave Powers started Clearwater Archery and Bob started Alpine. Of the three Bob is the only one still in the bow building buisness.


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## edje (Nov 2, 2002)

*hca*

I used to work for Carbofast. In the late nineties I had the privelidge to attend the Bowhuntershow a couple of times in Indianapolis. The last time I attended the show was in 2000. (I loved the PSE trucks). Carbofast was involved in the development of the carbon riser for HCA and the stabilisation. I had a graet time working together with HCA en met some great people on the shows like Rick Mckinney, Burley Hall, Jay Barrs, Berny Pellerite, Mike Lepera from Britesite, Tom Crowe etc.


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## VoiceBugler (Mar 11, 2003)

Interesting angles.... 

HCA was actually a Pro Shop in Orofino, ID, owned by Bob Proctor and Spencer Land. They were a Martin dealer. They came up with a new design for a bow which was short axle to axle, 60% let off, radical flex in the limbs, and SMOKIN fast(for those days). It was called the Eliminator and was built by Martin and branded High Country. This bow was absolutely a head turner, as it was radically different from anything built previously. Things being what they are in the world of competition, reasons pushed HCA to manufacture they're own bows. They built a MFG plant in Lewiston, ID and they launched with the Trophy Hunter, which was the industries first 65% let off bow and was pretty untouchable in the speed dept. They also built some target bows, but the TH was their bread and butter hunting bow. The Sniper, mentioned above, was the next generation TH. It was built with an all fast flite system, as opposed to tear dropped steel cables. They and Hoyt, both, went to string bows right at the same time and the industry has never looked back. Hoyt's was the AIM system.

Bob Proctor and Spencer Land parted ways and Alpine Archery was formed in 88, as mentioned above. Both were located in Lewistion, ID. HCA had factory direct Pro Shops located in Boise, ID, Spokane, WA, Everett, WA, and Lewiston, ID. A time later HCA uprooted and moved their MFG to Dunlap, TN, with all of their Pro Shop closures to follow.

David Powers was a staff shooter for HCA until forming Clearwater Archery in Orofino, ID. Clearwater later sold out to Storm (Burley Hall).

Jerry Johnson, as I recall, actually came from Golden Eagle. Golden Circle Sports was his brand and they were made in Kooskia, ID. He also had a sight line that was a pretty good seller in it's day.

Lethal Weapon was another brand of bow in North Idaho, which was essentially either a Clearwater or Golden Circle bow, painted up and re-branded. I belive it was GC, but I'm not sure on that one. Rocky Jacobsen was the owner. He's now better known for his Bugle Tone elk calls and winning 1 or 10 or something national elk calling titles..


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## VoiceBugler (Mar 11, 2003)

Pintojk... Are you referring to Stone Mtn? I'm not sure, though an archery company, you could call them a bow company. I don't know of Joey Vaughn ever building bows. He was an HCA staff shooter and eventually started a MFG facility. I recall sights being his first venture, along with drift boats, and now bow strings.


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## pintojk (Jan 31, 2003)

*yup, Stone Mountain had a bow line as well .....*

I believe it was like an AMC ..... built from a variety of parts from Alpine etc. production couldn't have lasted more than a year.

PintoJK


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## c3hammer (Sep 20, 2002)

Wow! Interesting to see this one come back up after almost two years. Thanks for the info there VoiceBugler. Too bad I can't remember who I was having the discussion with back then. I thought I had it right, but at my age you never can tell what you are really remembering 

Cheers,
pete


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## VoiceBugler (Mar 11, 2003)

That's interesting that Stone Mtn. built a bow. I'd never heard of it before. cool...


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## lla (Feb 3, 2003)

there are two Stone Mtn. bows that I know of still throwing arrow up near me
not a bad bow 
it has the HCA Hatchet cams 
Gregg


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## DDD in Idaho (Oct 29, 2002)

*Stone Mountain??*

Are you sure you aren't talking about BLUE Mountain?? They were built by Walker Machine out of Walla Walla, wa. 

They DID have the High Country cams, and they had Jerry Johson's limbs on them -- some of them anyway. In fact Jerry's son Craig worked for them building the limbs.

DDD


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## Panteramag (Jun 14, 2006)

didn't hca make american bows to


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## pintojk (Jan 31, 2003)

*nope .....*



DDD in Idaho said:


> Are you sure you aren't talking about BLUE Mountain?? They were built by Walker Machine out of Walla Walla, wa.
> 
> They DID have the High Country cams, and they had Jerry Johson's limbs on them -- some of them anyway. In fact Jerry's son Craig worked for them building the limbs.
> 
> DDD


Stone Mountain made bows :wink:


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## lla (Feb 3, 2003)

I stand corrected
BLUE Mountain Bows

one is about 3 miles away,he bought in 1997 new
he maybe interested in parting with it
I will know tomorrow with the spec's
Gregg


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## J-Daddy (Aug 7, 2003)

Huh, I wasnt aware that HCA & Alpine had any ties....
I knew HCA & Clearwater Archery had ties, I owned a Clearwater Power Mag XT years ago and it had the old HCA hatchet cams on it "I loved those cams, smooth drawing & very fast for their day". After that I owned a High country Split Force Elite, I think I got one of the very last Elite bows they ever built "it had the matching camo cams & limb buttons", my buddy "Crazy Horse Archery in KY" special ordered it for me and they were in the process of doing away with the Elite series at that point but I ended up with one. That was the last HCA bow I owned but I think that might be changing pretty soon, looking at an IronMace now and the new bows for '08 are looking like some great 3-D rigs.


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## articslayer (Apr 8, 2012)

I just dusted off my old Golden Circle bows today and started wondering about Jerry and what ever happened to him. I was involved in a little archery shop in Coos Bay, Oregon in the early 90's. Abe of Abe and Son Natural Elk Sounds was the owner. He soon bacame my father in law and soon became not... long story!!!! Jerry supplied most of the stock of bows and I was impressed with them. My first bow was a Ninja. I still have 4 of his bows. After a while I became involved in the company and after Rocky won the RMEF with one of Abe's hand made calls we went into full production... Note: It was after a little conflict that involved the RMEF win.... I still have one of Abe's original hand made mouth pieces.... 
Sometime later I had the privilage of guiding the owners of Mountianeer Archery.... Had a blast and got a little footage but no blood. I can't remember the guy behind the camera but he was the one that shot the original footage of a famous bull ride that was in the movie "7 Seconds". Anyway, jogged a lot of fond and not so fond memories.... Thanks for letting me ramble on, Scotty


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## rgfrison (Jan 28, 2012)

I worked for Walker Machine, we made Clearwater, and Golden Circle machined risers, cams wheels, and mods. We made Martin stuff only, when we got into archery products. Guy Walker and Martin had a falling out, I heard one side, so I won't tell stories about why. We started doing parts for a lot of different companys before we started our own product line called Blue Mountain Archery. A deal was struck to get Craig Johnson ( Jerry's son ) to help out with limbs and product development. In the begining we did stuff for other companys along with our own product, things were great, our product was gaining a reputation and the bills were getting paid. We started our second generation of bows with the introduction of the razorback followed by the sabertooth, and preditor (the 12 minute riser). Soon after our second generation started, we stopped doing parts for other companies and did only Blue Mountain. I helped develop the t-rex and split limb products. I did the first generation prototype solo cam with interchangable mod. It was a copy of Mathews first gen product, with a module for changing draw lengths. As far as I know it would have been an industry first. The solocam never saw production or any more development. The solocam by mathews saw further refinement with their inertia disk unit, and we fell behind with our copy of their original design. We developed a sight from someone elses design, imo the worst decision we ever made, the amount of multi operation parts required, tooling costs, and extrusions we had made, it would have taken 10 years break even on. A lot of the Blue mountains product line was started by R&C (reseach and copy). Some were original ideas, we CNC machined our limbs with barrel tolerences held within .002, and pairs matched even closer. If we would have used better glass, you would be hard pressed to find anything better out there. 
The original company Walker Machine split, and Mirage was formed. Mirage was owned by Craig Johnson, and Scott Foust, I think I was the only employee from Walker that ended up going to Mirage. It was over pretty soon after Mirage formed (now you see us now you don't) between the sight project and other questionable endevors, all the money was gone. I have some ideas why blue mountain failed, but pointing fingers never changes anything. There were lawsuits and other issues that followed soon after.
I have fond and not so fond memories of those days, but I have a lot to be thankful for, they gave me a decent career to build on, and it was a great time while it lasted. The old Clearwater, Golden Circle and Blue mountain stuff was nice for that era. As far as the original thread, I heard stories of dumpster diving for hatchet cam designs, so everyone is probably connected in one way or another. lol


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## kballer1 (Aug 31, 2010)

HCA had nothing to with American Archery! American Archery was in business before the guys in HCA were born.


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## Boatman71 (Jul 16, 2013)

Hatchet Cams vs Tomahawk cams..... the good old days!


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## Tjeder (Dec 8, 2020)

articslayer said:


> I just dusted off my old Golden Circle bows today and started wondering about Jerry and what ever happened to him. I was involved in a little archery shop in Coos Bay, Oregon in the early 90's. Abe of Abe and Son Natural Elk Sounds was the owner. He soon bacame my father in law and soon became not... long story!!!! Jerry supplied most of the stock of bows and I was impressed with them. My first bow was a Ninja. I still have 4 of his bows. After a while I became involved in the company and after Rocky won the RMEF with one of Abe's hand made calls we went into full production... Note: It was after a little conflict that involved the RMEF win.... I still have one of Abe's original hand made mouth pieces....
> Sometime later I had the privilage of guiding the owners of Mountianeer Archery.... Had a blast and got a little footage but no blood. I can't remember the guy behind the camera but he was the one that shot the original footage of a famous bull ride that was in the movie "7 Seconds". Anyway, jogged a lot of fond and not so fond memories.... Thanks for letting me ramble on, Scotty


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## Tjeder (Dec 8, 2020)

I hunted with Abe and Jerry many years ago on the Lolo trail. Jerry died last year in Baker Ore. I sold Golden Circle products for 4 or 5 years. I still have an Abe and sons prototype Abe gave me. I still have my Golden Circle bow. I visited with Jerry about 2 and a half years ago.


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## jandpconroy (Nov 3, 2021)

edje said:


> *hca*
> 
> I used to work for Carbofast. In the late nineties I had the privelidge to attend the Bowhuntershow a couple of times in Indianapolis. The last time I attended the show was in 2000. (I loved the PSE trucks). Carbofast was involved in the development of the carbon riser for HCA and the stabilisation. I had a graet time working together with HCA en met some great people on the shows like Rick Mckinney, Burley Hall, Jay Barrs, Berny Pellerite, Mike Lepera from Britesite, Tom Crowe etc.


Hopefully you are doing well jim Carbofast


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## jandpconroy (Nov 3, 2021)

edje said:


> *hca*
> 
> I used to work for Carbofast. In the late nineties I had the privelidge to attend the Bowhuntershow a couple of times in Indianapolis. The last time I attended the show was in 2000. (I loved the PSE trucks). Carbofast was involved in the development of the carbon riser for HCA and the stabilisation. I had a graet time working together with HCA en met some great people on the shows like Rick Mckinney, Burley Hall, Jay Barrs, Berny Pellerite, Mike Lepera from Britesite, Tom Crowe etc.


I 8 in 7 i8 8


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