dustinf
Active member
This was my first trip to Alaska, and I have to say it was well worth the wait. My partner had an elk/deer/bear tags in his pocket, I had a couple deer tags and a black bear tag.
My journey to Alaska started with a four hour drive down to Arlington Virginia Wednesday night. Early Thursday morning the hotel shuttle dropped me off at the airport, and about 11 hours later I found myself on the ferry that connects the airport to the town of Ketchikan.
We hoped to fly out Thursday afternoon, but the weather delayed us until about 10am Friday.
Loading the float plane:
This was my first ride in a Beaver, and it was a smooth ride. Pretty cool views of the ocean, and islands as we flew over.
Once we landed, we had just enough time to get the tent up in our base camp, before the rain started. Luckily, we had time to get our gear in, with out it getting soaked. I wish I had more pictures, but the heavy rain I just didn't take many pictures.
We hunted around base camp the first couple days with out much luck. Our plan was to head up the mountain Monday, the day before elk season opened. We packed up, and took off for the 1 mile trek that gained 1,100ft.
This was pretty much my uniform for the week, HH impertec rain pants, hiking boots with crampons. The ground was extremely slick, and the crampons were mandatory to maintain any type of traction(descents would have been impossible with out them.)
We still hadn't located the elk, but Wednesday was a blue bird day. My partner killed a real nice 4x4 blacktail, and I missed a real nice 4x4 as well. With nice weather, I was finally able to cover ground, and glass the areas above tree line. I made a nice stalk on a little forky blacktail, but decided to pass on him.
About 30 seconds after this shot, I spotted the 4x4 I missed. Lets just say, it was an embarrassing display of marksmanship that involved reloading. It took me over an hour to traverse over where the deer was, but after 45 minutes of checking the area it became evident that all the shots were clean misses.
Just some other random shots, from the one day we had with no rain.
Our spike camp:
I ended up killing a dry sow on Thursday morning, which I have zero pictures of. It was a pretty basic stalk, that ended up with a clean 1 shot kill from about 120 yards. Luckily the 168 grain Berger dropped her because she was on a hillside, and if she lost any elevation the pack out would have been even more difficult.
With two animals down, my partner's deer and my bear, we decided to load up meat and descend all the way to base camp Thursday. The descent was treacherous to say the least, and involved 2- 30 foot uncontrolled slides down the mountain.
Friday morning we hiked up to spike camp, broke it down, and descended back to base camp. Friday night a hellacious storm blew through, and we had to go out twice to re-stake the tent.
Luckily we were able to fly out Saturday morning, but I ended up stuck in Ketchikan waiting for Fish and Game to open Monday morning. So, at 9 am Monday morning I was getting my bear sealed, instead of boarding my flight home. I rescheduled everything eventually flying out of Ketchikan Tuesday morning, and ended up at home 3am Wednesday morning.
It was an awesome trip, and I look forward to many more hunts in Alaska...
My journey to Alaska started with a four hour drive down to Arlington Virginia Wednesday night. Early Thursday morning the hotel shuttle dropped me off at the airport, and about 11 hours later I found myself on the ferry that connects the airport to the town of Ketchikan.
We hoped to fly out Thursday afternoon, but the weather delayed us until about 10am Friday.
Loading the float plane:
This was my first ride in a Beaver, and it was a smooth ride. Pretty cool views of the ocean, and islands as we flew over.
Once we landed, we had just enough time to get the tent up in our base camp, before the rain started. Luckily, we had time to get our gear in, with out it getting soaked. I wish I had more pictures, but the heavy rain I just didn't take many pictures.
We hunted around base camp the first couple days with out much luck. Our plan was to head up the mountain Monday, the day before elk season opened. We packed up, and took off for the 1 mile trek that gained 1,100ft.
This was pretty much my uniform for the week, HH impertec rain pants, hiking boots with crampons. The ground was extremely slick, and the crampons were mandatory to maintain any type of traction(descents would have been impossible with out them.)
We still hadn't located the elk, but Wednesday was a blue bird day. My partner killed a real nice 4x4 blacktail, and I missed a real nice 4x4 as well. With nice weather, I was finally able to cover ground, and glass the areas above tree line. I made a nice stalk on a little forky blacktail, but decided to pass on him.
About 30 seconds after this shot, I spotted the 4x4 I missed. Lets just say, it was an embarrassing display of marksmanship that involved reloading. It took me over an hour to traverse over where the deer was, but after 45 minutes of checking the area it became evident that all the shots were clean misses.
Just some other random shots, from the one day we had with no rain.
Our spike camp:
I ended up killing a dry sow on Thursday morning, which I have zero pictures of. It was a pretty basic stalk, that ended up with a clean 1 shot kill from about 120 yards. Luckily the 168 grain Berger dropped her because she was on a hillside, and if she lost any elevation the pack out would have been even more difficult.
With two animals down, my partner's deer and my bear, we decided to load up meat and descend all the way to base camp Thursday. The descent was treacherous to say the least, and involved 2- 30 foot uncontrolled slides down the mountain.
Friday morning we hiked up to spike camp, broke it down, and descended back to base camp. Friday night a hellacious storm blew through, and we had to go out twice to re-stake the tent.
Luckily we were able to fly out Saturday morning, but I ended up stuck in Ketchikan waiting for Fish and Game to open Monday morning. So, at 9 am Monday morning I was getting my bear sealed, instead of boarding my flight home. I rescheduled everything eventually flying out of Ketchikan Tuesday morning, and ended up at home 3am Wednesday morning.
It was an awesome trip, and I look forward to many more hunts in Alaska...
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Here is a shot of our alternative to crampons (not to hijack the thread). Got a picture of the dead deer?
