Haul Road Hunting 2004

Incredibly smoking conditions on the drive up haul road. The conditions were so bad once we couldn't even see the lines on the road. I was driving about 2 miles an hour, hoping the fire wasn't going to cross the road since we had six 5 gallon containers of gas on our roof.

The only animal we saw on this hunt....at the truck. If only we'd known.

Aaron and Adam getting water and doing a little glassing for caribou! Luckily we didn't know the snow was coming. 

The glow of Aaron and my tent.

Adam and I fixing some grub on the tundra.

Ah, the snow! We were about 2 miles from camp went it got awful foggy. We thought we'd sit it out, but when it started hailing on us, we started walking. The hail turned into snow, and it kept going all afternoon. We were in our tents at 2pm and stayed there the rest of the day.

We easily got five inches that day/night. Adam in his tent, Aaron and I in ours. A long day to spend.  The next morning it looked like another snow was blowing in so we walked out. Saw one set of wolf tracks. 

So hard to get out of our sleeping bags on cool fall mornings in Alaska. 

Our Secret Spot.......September 13, 2003

Our VERY successful first Alaska moose hunt; the hardest thing we've ever done....not shooting it, but packing the 500+ pounds of meat four miles. 

We scouted the area earlier in the year and saw lots of moose sign, but thought the five mile hike w/out a good trail was a little excessive.....but we wanted a moose. A little agony is good.

Aaron and I both shot this beauty about 15 minutes after we left camp. Both shots hit smack in the vitals.  When we walked up to it, we realized just how big moose really are, I could barely step over him.

This had to be the best day of my life.  I never thought we'd get all the meat out to the truck. Three and a half days later we made the last trip.  Best of all, no bears got in the meat.

Of course we didn't have room inside for the rack....It just had to go on the roof.  We drove six hours with hunters staring at our trophy. 

Drive up the Dalton Highway Caribou Hunting, September 1, 2003.

On the drive up the colors were like nothing I've ever seen before. Of course we hadn't gone over the pass yet, so we could still see. Once over it was so foggy we could hardly see.

After hiking the five mile corridor, we set up camp. This is what we woke up to our first morning...Snow and cold, but at least we could see more than a hundred yards.

Our spot...about two miles from camp. We spotted caribou miles and miles away. The closest was about two miles from where we were sitting.  

We spent hours and hours glassing.  Eventually we hiked to the lake and explored, finding bunches of shed antlers, but no caribou.

Our day of exploring was clear but very cold and windy. Unfortunately, we ended up going home with no caribou.  We are already planning next year.