Tag: Camping

Into the Tundra: Part Six

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The following is an account of day six of our trip to the Arctic Circle.  If you missed day five, you can catch up in quick fashion with a recap found here.

We woke up to another thin layer of ice on the tent. Our bodies were a little sore from the pack out, but not as bad as we’d feared. We had our mochas, did a little stretching, and decided to try our luck at fishing. Prior to the trip we’d investigated what kind of fish might be swimming around in the lakes and streams of the arctic, and learned grayling and arctic char were a likely bet. They allegedly loved the Blue Fox lure… so we made sure to pick up a few of those before we left.

We headed out of camp and toward the spot where the Oregon boys told us they were catching fish one after the other. Trout, they claimed. We brought our collapsible poles and a rifle… we did have one more tag to fill, and didn’t want to see a huge bull with no way to bring it down.

The morning fog and drizzle refused to go away, but our Gortex gear kept us nice and dry. Back in the lower 48, I was skeptical about buying a rain jacket and rain pants… but I was glad I did. They fit over my layers and would not allow any of that Alaska moisture in.

On our way to the fishing hole, the decision to tote the rifle proved a good one. We spotted a herd of caribou. They were plodding along on the far side of the hill, headed toward Whale Rock, near where Edgar had taken his bull the day before. We also saw a lone bull, who decided to lie down in the field about two miles away. We decided to put off fishing for a moment to track the single bull. We crept toward him, quietly as possible and without exposing ourselves to the horizon. We were just about on him when he heard the other group of cows and calves calling, and got up to join them. We could see then that he was on the smaller side, and limping.

I’ll pause here to get a little personal with how I feel about hunting. I love animals. I have always loved all sorts of furry creatures, and even thought about being a vet at one point. I also eat meat. I’ve been one of those people who understands where my food comes from, but sort of ignores the delicate details of how that all happens. Until now. Now that I’ve been on some hunts, I understand the process a bit more. I understand that there are different kinds of hunters, and that there are many who really like animals as well, and have a great deal of respect for them. I understand that there are “canned” hunts where the outcome is all but decided, and true hunts where your skill and persistence as a outdoorsman is required. I appreciate the skill and enjoy the adventure, but I have never taken an animal myself. It means something to me, and I can’t just pull the trigger without a lot of thought.

This is a photo of me, giving it a lot of thought.

So for weeks leading up to the trip Edgar would causally ask me, “Are you planning to shoot a caribou?” and for weeks my answer would be, “I don’t know.”  One day I was sure it was an experience I wanted to have, to prove to myself that I could be a hunter, and I could fend for myself in the wilderness. The next day I thought about looking at that beautiful animal and taking its life and thought there was no way I could do it. “I might cry,” I told Edgar. “You will cry,” was his reply.

Now the moment had arrived. I could track this wounded bull and probably get within shooting distance. I had practiced at the range with the 7mm-08 and did better than I thought at 100 yards.   If I could get into position I had a chance at making the shot, but did I want to?  I admit ego was also getting in the way of my decision. I could shoot the wounded animal and it might be a way of showing mercy; he likely wouldn’t make the winter with an injured leg. But if I did shoot him, did it show some kind of weakness on my part, for taking a specimen who could not run away like the others?

While I pondered, the group moved off, and I decided I didn’t want to track them. I would hold off for a better opportunity, and perhaps a better bull.

As we headed back toward the fishing hole, we saw two more groups of caribou, but they were cows and calves, so we stuck with fishing. A few casts in, we had dinner. Two nice-sized grayling jumped on our line. We cast a few more times just to see if the char would bite, but they weren’t interested, so we headed back to camp.

Our camp supplies included some onions and potatoes, so I got to chopping those while Edgar prepared the fish. I don’t know if it was because of the cold drizzle or the calories we’d burned the day before, but I was starving and that fish really hit the spot. Even now I remember that meal as one of the best of the trip.

After our dinner, we warmed up in the tent for a while, and then Edgar wanted to go for a walk. My knee was bugging me from the pack out, so I decided to rest it and wait to see if he saw anything good. He came back from a wander over toward Elephant Mountain and said he saw a bunch of caribou by the spire. We took advantage of the last hour of daylight to see if a bull might be among them. As we walked along the lake the rain got more and more serious, and dark was coming quickly.  We realized it wasn’t going to be the right time to pull the trigger even if we did see something, so we headed back to camp.  We made the most of the trip back, picking up driftwood to burn for a little warmth, and taking a moment to enjoy the brisk night air and arctic sky. 

On day seven, we nearly lost our boots in the muck of the tundra, and spotted some young caribou who definitely lost their herd. 

Into the Tunda: Part Four

Leigh, Travel

The following is an account of day four of our trip to the arctic circle.  If you missed day three, you can catch up in quick fashion with a recap found here.

It was a chilly night in the tent.  We had a little propane lantern going before bed, and that helped to heat the area, and of course my bag was cozy, but the morning air was not.  I was happy I had splurged for a sleep sack, which boasted an extra 25 degrees of protection.  I don’t know about 25, but it was soft and well worth the extra layer to keep in body heat.

My penguin socks also came in handy as a secondary foot layer.

The provisions from the outfitter included a two-burner stove and a kettle; the latter we had filled with lake water the night before, and had it ready in the vestibule.  Edgar broke up the thin layer of ice that had formed overnight, and got coffee going, since one of us is not such a morning person (cough, cough, me, cough cough) and he kindly served it to me in my sleeping bag so I could warm up before I got up.

Once we were properly caffeinated, we greeted the morning at first light.  We couldn’t get over the beauty of our camp site.  The water was blue and clear, and clean enough to drink.  I’ve never been camping anywhere where we just took our water bottles down to the edge of the lake and scooped up a bunch to drink, but that’s what we did all week with no arguments from our digestive systems.  (Special thanks to my friend who gave me a life water tube to use just in case – I did try it out just so I’ll be ready if it’s needed on the next trip!)

My stomach wakes up slowly, but Edgar woke up starving and decided to have a Mountain House spaghetti for breakfast.  We didn’t know what to expect from the ready-to-eat packs, but we found them surprisingly tasty.  We poured a couple of cups of hot water right in the pouch, let it sit, and in no time it was ready to eat.

The guys who stayed at the camp prior to our arrival had killed several of their caribou after spotting them right from camp, so our binoculars were never far away, and we glassed in between making coffee, and packing gear.  It wasn’t uncommon for one of us to be making a sandwich, and the other to take a quick climb up the hill to see what we could see.

We decided to head to a small hill not too far away and put our binoculars to work.  The caribou seemed to be coming from the south and heading north into a valley.  We made some pb&j sandwiches, filled up our water bottles and layered up for the day.  We also packed meat bags, knives, a bone saw, and other items we’d need if we were successful in our hunt.

Once we found a comfy spot, we leaned against our packs and looked over the tundra, up on the hill, around the rocks and back to the tundra again.  At first my eyes deceived me.  Everything that dotted the landscape looked like a caribou.  I’d stare at a dark speck with a shiny side, slide off it and then move back over.  Did it move?  No.  Rock.   We did this for an hour or two, snacking on mini snickers, but eventually the sun warmed us so nicely that we found ourselves dozing here and there.  We woke up a while later to see a cow and calf crossing the tundra.  They moved pretty leisurely for a long time, before suddenly trotting away.

A while later we saw another cow and calf hanging out by the river… which was easily a mile from us but still in our view. We walked up the river bed for a closer look, and to get a better understanding of the best way to travel.  Prior to our trip, the one warning we got more than other wasn’t about low temperatures or grizzlies, but about the challenge of walking on the tundra.  The land is boggy; it sits on permafrost.  Trees can’t root down through it, so we saw grass and small shrubbery on top and some sort of plant that looks like a head of broccoli, called a tussock.  Sometimes when we’d step, we’d get grass.  Sometimes our boots would sink under mucky water, and sometimes we’d land on a bouncy tussock.  The river bed was mostly gravel, and much more inviting, and we traveled it whenever it was going in our general direction, even if we had to wind around a bit.

Just down river, no bulls were in sight, so we had to be content with enjoying the scenery, which was easy enough to do.  It was so quiet that at one point I heard a noise and couldn’t figure out what it was.  Eventually I placed it.  It was the rustle of a bird’s wings as it flew above me.

At dusk we headed back to camp to build a fire and enjoy a warm meal of beef stroganoff.  We made a plan to move into the valley the next day, where the animals all seemed to be headed.

In part five, our patience pays off along with our waders and pack out bag, and we hit our record for number of miles traveled across the tundra in one day.

Into the Tundra: Part Three

Leigh, Travel

The following is an account of day three of our trip to the arctic circle.  If you missed day two, you can catch up in quick fashion with a recap found here. 

The wind died down on Saturday morning, and we got the text we were hoping to see.  “Can you be ready in 15?”  Ten minutes later we were anxiously waiting for the van to take us back to the staging area.   We got our bags organized and in the van, and enjoyed a few laughs as the guys from Wisconsin seemed to be forgetting everything in their rush to get into the field… including a rifle!  We also noticed they were well under the weight limit, and we heard one of them regretfully admit, “I didn’t really bring any cold weather gear.”  I glanced down at my bag of coats, hats, gloves and wool long johns and felt a little bad for him.  It’s Alaska, friends.  It might be late summer, but it still gets cold.

We needed our waders for the boarding process, since the float planes were tied up close to shore, but still required a few steps in the water.  I got to sit up front next to the pilot, while Edgar took the chair right behind me.  Taking off on the water is unreal.  The plane glided for a while while we got up speed, and then lifted effortlessly into the Alaskan sky.  It was a bumpy ride for some of the 150 miles north to our camp site.  While my stomach lurched and dropped, our pilot was completely unbothered.  I glanced over and caught him sending a smiley face emoji to someone.  Edgar and I locked eyes and I knew we were thinking the same thing.  If your bush pilot is confident enough to text while he’s flying you out, he’s either unhinged, or there’s nothing to worry about.  We settled on the latter.

We saw caribou, and so much water.  It’s crazy how many rivers and lakes we saw from the air.   We knew we were being dropped off by a lake, so every time I saw a big one I was thinking… maybe we land here… or here… this one looks nice.  Finally the pilot spotted what he’d been after, and we landed smooth as silk on a good-sized lake.  A bunch of guys were gathered in camp chairs on the beach, and they greeted us warmly.  They wasted no time in sharing the layout of the camp, where they saw animals, which direction the caribou were going, and which meals they enjoyed the most from the Mountain House packs.  They also had a stack of leftover firewood, which was much appreciated.  There were six of them, so they’d had three tents, and left one standing and ready for us to move in.  Only half of them could fit in the plane, so the other three stayed back with us for a few more hours.  It took 90 minutes each way to ferry us back and forth from the staging area.

Fish and Game officials have serious rules about NOT hunting the day you fly.  But there is no law against getting the lay of the land, so once our new friends had departed we spent the next five hours of daylight getting to know the valley.  We saw a few caribou, including one rather large bull we nicknamed Mr. Wide.  He had really tall uppers, but no bez.  We watched him for a good while, and slowly got closer, until he’d had enough of us and headed back toward the canyon.

The visual judging of distance is deceiving.  These caribou were close to camp, but still about 200 yards away.  With our binoculars we could see for miles, so it felt like everything was so close, but the actual distance and the mushy give of the tundra made crossing the valley more time-consuming than it appeared.

The daytime temperature was comfortable – in my wool base layer, lined overalls and fleece I was plenty warm, but when the sun went down the temperature really dropped.  We got a fire going and each enjoyed a warm Mountain House meal before burrowing into our sleeping bags.  I admit it took some time for me to fall asleep that first night.  I heard soft, unidentifiable noises, that for no reason whatsoever I suspected might be a grizzly bear.  Once I was certain it was just the wind, I pulled my hat low and my sleeping bag high and drifted off.

On day four we established a morning coffee routine, had an unconventional camp breakfast, and devised a strategy for crossing the tundra.

 

 

Rides Around: A Custom-Built Missouri River Boat

Travel

This week’s Rides Around is more like a “Floats Around” and comes to us from a friend who was inspired by last week’s post and poem.  

The owner and builder of this flat-bottomed boat grew up on the Northern Pacific shore, on the outskirts of Juneau, AK.  He was a Woodsman, a Hunter, a Boatman, a Builder, and a classic example of The Men Who Don’t Fit In.

He loved all kinds of boats (and trucks, and cars, and army vehicles), and sketched them in his many notebooks.  He had the opportunity to own many, and custom re-fit a few.

This 18-foot, 1992 Lowe Jon Boat was a bare hull when purchased.  Everything was fabricated from the center drive console to the entire trailer, which was customized with knobby tires and .50 caliber ammo boxes just for storage………perhaps.

It made many trips down the Missouri River in search of Adventure, Bighorn Sheep, and Family Camping in the White Cliffs of the Missouri.
The Rig: 1992 Jon Boat
The Location:  The Great State of Montana
The Driver:  A Fine Figure of a Man
The Special Circumstance: Thinking of Erik
 
-SKI