Got an Aziak backcountry lite tripod for Christmas and been impressed, especially given the minimal weight. Got their light weight head last summer and it’s ok but not as smooth as I would like, hard to find anything lighter though. Use with 10x binos & 40x spotter.
Tripod when glassing big areas, didn’t feel it was needed until I upgraded binoculars (10x Leica). Now I’m annoyed if I don’t have a tripod, just miss details.
AK is amazing! AK is also huge, sounds like way too much driving to me especially with kids. I’ve driven the haul road from Fairbanks to Coldfoot and it’s not as majestic as some other areas I have been. Fairbanks is also nothing special. I would recommend the Denali highway loop ( Paxson -...
Looks like you have a good dog to help with that, so essential. Just got back from duck hunting on the OR coast and we would have been 3 birds lighter without our Pudlepointer, for ducks he’s no lab but he finds the wounded birds and can finally sit in a blind at age 7…
Upgraded to a Leica 2800 a couple years ago and have been impressed. Ability to range animals on flats is biggest advantage over the ~10 year old Leupold 800 it replaced.
That being said for archery I still carry a ~15 year old Nikon due to simplicity and lower magnification.
Definitely a lynx in AK for me, saw two one trip, one was hunting ground squirrels and we were able to watch for 20 minutes. Others was fairly close, only got a cell phone pic though.
In 50 days it will probably be nice or snowing, not raining, so not as critical on high quality rain gear. Most of MT isn’t terribly brushy so thin gear should work for one hunt. It’s not SE AK. I would worry more about warm gear than rain gear for MT rifle season. Gaiters can help a lot too...
I’ve spent more nights in a marmot than any other tent. They are reasonably priced and go on sale. Their warranty is great as well, had a failure on a very well used (10 years of heavy use) tent and they replaced it no questions. The replacement is a tungsten UL and have had it for ~5 years...
No goal, typically quarter game with a knife. Bought chainsaw for cutting wood not meat/bone. Just trying to figure out if I’m missing something before I fill it with petroleum bar oil.
I had that thought also, want sure if the bar friction caused enough heat it wasn’t an issue. Have had the frozen oil problem in our camp cook kit, bought some flaxseed oil due to low freezing temp but it tastes wired… canola isn’t as good for low temp but a lot better than olive.