MDHunter
Ultimate Member
Back in Maryland after another Alaska wilderness adventure – Alaska delivered as only Alaska can. Here is our gear load arriving on the ridgetop. While flying into camp, we saw a very large grizzly dragging another grizzly that it had killed – and we were reminded that out here, there is competition for the top of the food chain…
Here’s our campsite – we use the orange tent for sleeping, and the green tent for food and gear. Nice to have a separate tent to cook and sit in when the rain is falling pretty hard. Found water about a half mile from the tents at about the same elevation, so fetching water was relatively easy this year.
Shot a nice caribou on Day 2 of our 11-day hunt – he was in a group of 11 that had several other nice bulls in it. He may have been a leader of the group – the rest were hesitant to leave him, and one nice bull hung around the area for 2 days, even after a grizzly dragged the carcass down into a draw.
It was about a 2-mile pack back to the ridgetop where the Super Cub could pick up the meat and antlers and take it to town (we had another 9 days to camp and hunt). Here I am at the halfway point back to the ridgetop, shuttling the meat and antlers from one stop to the next.
We saw 8-10 grizzly bears on our 11-day hunt; on Day 4 we encountered this one on the ridge where we camped, and decided that we needed to run him off as he was way too close to camp.
Things got a little tense when he circled to get downwind and slightly above us – but after a few moments he opted to search for greener pastures, and we never saw him again.
We were concerned about this calf caribou that hung around camp for a few days; if it didn’t hook up with some adult caribou, it would likely be killed within days by bears or wolves (that is likely what happened to its mother).
Although we couldn’t get him a moose, my buddy and I shared another great adventure; we may have to do it again in a few years, when his son graduates from high school…
Here’s our campsite – we use the orange tent for sleeping, and the green tent for food and gear. Nice to have a separate tent to cook and sit in when the rain is falling pretty hard. Found water about a half mile from the tents at about the same elevation, so fetching water was relatively easy this year.
Shot a nice caribou on Day 2 of our 11-day hunt – he was in a group of 11 that had several other nice bulls in it. He may have been a leader of the group – the rest were hesitant to leave him, and one nice bull hung around the area for 2 days, even after a grizzly dragged the carcass down into a draw.
It was about a 2-mile pack back to the ridgetop where the Super Cub could pick up the meat and antlers and take it to town (we had another 9 days to camp and hunt). Here I am at the halfway point back to the ridgetop, shuttling the meat and antlers from one stop to the next.
We saw 8-10 grizzly bears on our 11-day hunt; on Day 4 we encountered this one on the ridge where we camped, and decided that we needed to run him off as he was way too close to camp.
Things got a little tense when he circled to get downwind and slightly above us – but after a few moments he opted to search for greener pastures, and we never saw him again.
We were concerned about this calf caribou that hung around camp for a few days; if it didn’t hook up with some adult caribou, it would likely be killed within days by bears or wolves (that is likely what happened to its mother).
Although we couldn’t get him a moose, my buddy and I shared another great adventure; we may have to do it again in a few years, when his son graduates from high school…
