😀Two Years of Waiting, Back From Alaska

[kadbow]

  It was a great trip! A great life experience, new landscape, true wilderness, true self reliance, new critters, lots of challenges and not for the faint of heart. I am not telling a story, don’t want to drag it out, just want to tell you about our trip. Right up front I will let you know the hunting was tough and we only got one caribou between the four of us but the experience was priceless. I would encourage anyone thinking about a big trip like this to do it if you can. All said and done this trip cost in the $4-5k range including buying some gear needed. Our trip consisted of flying commercial airlines to Kotzebue AK and then taking an air taxi in for 14 days (hunting caribou) with all of our own gear. I will post pics, wish I could post them all. Here are a few pics from Kotzebue to get it started. Kotzebue is a mostly native village, it looks like a very tough place to live. Things are pricey there including dumpy hotel rooms (but clean). An experience in its own. I hope to finish up tomorrow.

[Captain*Kirk]

Glad you made it back safe and sound and in one piece. Waiting for more pix..

[twitchstick]

 

[Charlie Lamb]

Looks like a grand adventure for sure. 

[kadbow]

A big part of the trip is planning. We found an air taxi that was totally flexible on length of stay and he had a higher weight limit which allowed a longer stay. We had an 80 lb/person limit which meant we could have a little more comfortable camp. My food for 14+ days was about 25 lbs. I don’t think I could have handled 14 days in a backpacking tent with the cold and rain we had. The fly in was beautiful and a little stomach churning as our pilot was doing some scouting on the way in. He knew we were trad guys but they weren’t seeing many caribou in areas with cover so we ended up in an area with no cover but some caribou.

[kadbow]

We landed on a sand bar in a river in wide open country. The day we arrived was the nicest day we had which was great for setting up camp. Water was close but not much to speak of for firewood. Turned out to be too windy for a fire most of the time anyway. You can’t hunt until the day after you fly in. We got in around 3:00 so by the time we got camp set up and all our gear together and organized for hunting it was getting late. So we had our first mountain house meal of many to come and went to bed. We all brought our own food and two propane stoves that screw onto the small Coleman bottles. You can’t bring fuel on the airlines so you have to buy it in Kotzebue. We paid $13.99 a bottle, there was a shortage in town. I had instant oatmeal for breakfast, my lunch is pictured and mountain house meals for dinner. Keeping meals simple was good because it was cold in the morning and cold in the evening, the quicker the better.

[kadbow]

We got into a routine pretty quick. We started hunting in pairs in different directions and all saw caribou. In this country you can see caribou 3 miles away but even seeing distant caribou was nice. It seemed about daily that someone would have a chance for a close encounter. Our definition of close was a couple hundred yards. We did find a couple areas with a little cover that the caribou used somewhat regular and started focusing on these areas. We saw some really nice bulls and all of us were within compound range of some big guys. There were enough caribou to keep it interesting and I think if there were a few more groups wandering around we would have done much better. My thoughts going into the trip was I would be happy if there were animals to hunt so I was happy.

We spent hours glassing, watching groups move and trying to ambush them.  Walking in the tundra is a chore. The clumps of tundra grass are 1-2 ft tall often with water in between them. It was like trying to walk on basketballs. I did get better at it as the trip progressed. The bonus was the wild blue berries and cranberries.

[kadbow]

We had rainy weather the first three days and then the north winds came and we had clear and cold the rest of the trip. It got colder each day. I ended up with a little frostbite on my face from hunting into that cold wind. Temps were down to the mid teens at the end of the trip, almost 30 degrees colder than any weather forecast we could find for the area before we left. Be prepared!

I think it was day 8 when we finally got a kill. Some caribou crossed the river onto the flat our camp was on. Two guys hunting different areas saw them and ended up approaching them from opposite sides. I watched through my binos as Steve got close to eight big bulls. I saw them all jump and run off a bit. I kept waiting for one to get wobbly and drop but it didn’t happen. Turned out they had just winded him prior to clearing some brush. So even though there was little cover it still managed to get in the way (I had the same thing happen to me). The commotion on Steve’s end got the group of cows and young bulls moving across the flat right into Eric and he shot a small bull at 10 yds.

The success was nice. It was an easy pack back to camp and we had ribs on the fire a couple days later. The caribou are smaller than I expected, I packed a front and rear quarter and both sides of ribs in one load. I don’t have great pics of the kill, by the time I got there the quartering was about done.

[GCook]

Sounds like a great adventure.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

[kadbow]

We saw caribou every day, grizzlies almost every day, a fox and a musk ox (very cool). The grizzlies were usually at a comfortable distance except once. The night we got the meat back to camp and stored a safe distance away we looked up the little hill above camp and a big boar was sitting there watching us. He was not the least bit afraid of us. It took breaking out the firearms and multiple tries to finally run him off.

[kadbow]

Having two weeks was awesome. We never felt rushed, we had time to figure the animals out a bit and it was enough time to feel totally immersed in the experience. Also pick good hunting partners, two weeks can be a long time, we all got along great.

This was a dream trip for me that came to reality. I don’t know if I will ever be able to do something like this again but I would do it in a second if I could.  If you have the means for something like this do it. It won’t get any cheaper and you won’t get any younger. Start your planning.

[Cyclic-Rivers]

Cool trip. Thanks for sharing with us

[elkken]

Very nice story and pics. Caribou are the ultimate spot and stock critter.

Thanks for sharing 

[Homebru]

Glad to hear you guys had a great time and managed to bring one home.
homebru

[mj seratt]

I'm just a hillbilly from Tennessee, but that looks like a BIG bear.

Murray

[cacciatore]

Thanks for sharing your great experience.

[rastaman]

Awesome pictures and story telling!  It brought back memories of my trip a few years back.  I laughed when you described walking on the tundra is like walking on basketballs.  That's exactly the way I described it to my buddies.  It was the hardest hunting trip I've ever been on, but also the most satisfying!  Thanks for sharing your hunt!

[kadbow]

I also got to check another item off the bucket list, seeing the northern lights. Very cool. The first clear night we had I tried staying up to see them. There was still light in the western sky at 11:30 and the full moon was rising so I gave up. My next plan worked, drink a little extra before bed so I would have to get up in the middle of the night to pee. It worked a couple of times.

[Captain*Kirk]

Fantastic thread, great pix and storytelling...I felt like I was there with you guys!
Thanks for sharing!

[SAM E. STEPHENS]

I love adventure hunting....

,,Sam,,