"Well, you came up here for adventure, didn't ya?"

[gonhunting247]

This is great! Having done this, almost exact trip 4 times for caribou or sheep (w/BIL from AK) it makes me smile thinking about the first time up. I was with my Brother-in-law, but Solo would make it even more unbelievable! It is so amazing! Seeing the pics really brings me back. That looks like a pretty good bear for that country I think! My BIL was able to tag one on the first trip and I think ours was a smaller bear than the pic . They are cool to watch, hopefully you'll see a wolverine also!
Looking forward to the rest of the adventure!

 

[crock239]

Good stuff. Following (and following almost literally this fall). Looking forward to the rest of this story!

 

[glass eye]

Planning on driving up there in August.
Still on the fence about hiking in or just sticking with a bow close to the road.

 

[ammo]

Following! I didn't know you could hunt caribou this time of year up there. This is definitely on the bucket list. Just looked at outfitter prices though ($20k!?!) ($5k just for a plane drop???) dang. Guess I need to keep fillin the penny jar.

 

[deer_shooter]

After the fry bread, all things in my head are calming down, so I decide to grab a pint of an IPA. I don't have a picture, so just imagine, if you will, the gentleman serving this beer. Classic euro mullet, handlebar moustache, skin tight canary yellow wifebeater, matching canary yellow booty shorts (plum smugglers, as my wife calls them), tall black socks, tennis shoes. This guy has confidence for days. He also knows quite a bit about beer.

I drink my beer, savoring the endless evening. It's still broad daylight when I decide on a cab ride home. Dave drives me back to the hotel in the comfort of a minivan. I'm plumb tuckered out at 8pm, and I sleep for about 10 hours.

I've spent a fair amount of time sampling the wares at HooDoo. I know the guy you're talking about, haha. Good to hear nothings changed.

 

[Derek44]

Amazing writing. This is a fun follow. Thanks for taking us along

 

[mdhunter]

Great stuff so far!

 

[CouesKelly]

Great story so far. Looking forward to the next installment.

 

[Bluffgruff]

After the initial bear sighting, I make the decision to move to the top of the hill that is blocking my view to the end of my ridge and much of the valleys on both sides.



My enthusiasm to hunt supercedes best planning, and that decision adds 4 miles to the beginning of the day. Grabbing my tent and moving to my next camp would be smarter, but it isn't all bad.

At the new glassing spot, I take time to relocate the lone grizzly, still munching berries, and panning with my binos on the tripod, I catch a momentary glimpse of a caribou trotting between two hills 2.5 miles away on the far ridge. It's gone before I can get the spotter up, but I'm on the board. A few minutes later I spot another three caribou on my ridge, also more than 2 miles away.

This is promising. I'm damn near excited.

 

[Bluffgruff]

I start back towards camp, wanting to move everything closer to the caribou, who seem to prefer the ridge tops and upper end of the valley.

I'm cruising back to my camp, mostly on rocky, alpine, tundra on the ridge line.

There's one swampy part where the scrub grows up a seep to the ridge and the tundra deepens. When I reach that section, a dark shape appears 175 yards away.

I stop real quick, and unholster my bear spray, rifle cradled, round in the chamber. Binos up, it looks like a young bear, maybe even a black bear, the muted light through the clouds makes it look dark, but not black. I shift upwind, trying to put my scent on his nose, while I have some room to maneuver and defend myself if necessary, hoping it will move off. The wind keeps changing as I circle farther around the ridge top, never blowing directly towards it. The bear moves down his side of the ridge away from me, still unaware. It disappears for a moment over the slope of the ridge. I hold my position for 5 or 10 minutes, I have a good view in all directions. Just as I start to think the bear is gone, it comes back in view, straight lining over the ridge crest. It will pass less than 100 yards in front of me.
When it hits my walking trail on the ridgeline from earlier, it stops, looks right at me, then starts hurrying into the valley to my right.




I have video of this, and in the video I'm talking about how sure I am that this is a black bear. Straight face profile, big ears, minimal hump, but I dont really know, still.

 

[Caseknife]

Awesome write-up so far and the pictures of that country are inspiring. Did you think of taking an electric fence for bear deterrent?

 

[Bluffgruff]

Following! I didn't know you could hunt caribou this time of year up there. This is definitely on the bucket list. Just looked at outfitter prices though ($20k!?!) ($5k just for a plane drop???) dang. Guess I need to keep fillin the penny jar.

I spent about $4k door to door. I was willing to pay the air taxi fees, but no one wanted my money.

 

[Bluffgruff]

Awesome write-up so far and the pictures of that country are inspiring. Did you think of taking an electric fence for bear deterrent?

I had considered it, but didn't. I will likely take one next time.

 

[Bluffgruff]

Planning on driving up there in August.
Still on the fence about hiking in or just sticking with a bow close to the road.

I would take both if bow hunting is something you enjoy. You will walk passed herds on your way to the edge of the corridor in most places. Bow keeps you mobile, lets you sleep in your truck, increases your hunting, and decreases your total miles on your feet.

 

[marksjeep]

Great story telling and pics! Thanks for posting it up. A refreshing change for the off season around here.

 

[Bluffgruff]

Bear free for the moment, I more cautiously approach my camp. All intact, food bag where I left it under the sled.

Oh, there's that head net, just in time. Now things are biting, as it warms up to 50



I make some dehy and coffee, and figure out how to keep bear spray and rifle immediately available while taking advantage of one hell of a scenic toilet.



I pack my camp on the sled in dry bags, keeping my hunting gear on my back, and get going along the ridge.



I retrace my steps over the far hill, passing numerous sheds. I stop taking pictures after a while.



I get back to the spit on the hill where I can see the valley. I catch a caribou criss-crossing its way over a far ridge. This one is a bull based on butt morphology, but antlers are smallish.



I relocate my solo bear again as he cruises from berry patch to berry patch.

The three caribou are still on my ridge two miles away, so I start to make my way over there. In a brief free hand glassing stop, I catch a glimpse of a huge rack peaking over a ridgeline four miles away, and I get really excited. This is obviously a big bull, but he is so far away I'm wondering if he could possibly still be there if I made my way to him. I drop a pin on my mapping app and get moving. The going is a bit tough with the sled. Picking routes with no brush, only small rocks, and not too much incline is getting old. When I get where the three caribou are, they spot me, but come in very close and curious. Two cows and a calf, in bow range at times, they move off after 10-15 minutes.

 

[Bluffgruff]

I feel like this is dragging out., but I keep remembering details, and this may be my last chance to get them all down before my brain parts ways with those synapses.

I drag my sled another few hundred yards to a slightly sheltered spot off the crest of the ridge, right as it starts to pitch up to a much higher hill, and detach it from my pack. I toss a few other unnecessary items on the pile, and then a tarp to ward away the rain as I put my rain gear on to eat a quick lunch.



I find another sow and a couple cubs on the far hill, a mile from the big solo bear, and 2 miles from me. Geez there are a lot of bears.

I start moving toward my mark for the ridgeline bulls as the sky really opens up and pours rain. The wind picks up and it's driving the rain into my face, down my beard and behind my collar, really cranking up the misery. I finally can't take it and stop and put my back into the wind.



Right where I stop, there is a massive blueberry bear turd, looks like a bunch of clif bars stuck together.

The rain and wind slack off, so I get moving again. Climbing one terrace after another in some pretty soft tundra, looking for the bull.

It's getting late, after 7pm, and I'm considering the couple miles I have traveled and all the bears. I push on. The sun and the clouds put on a beautiful show around me.



As I crouch walk around each lip and glass, I'm finally rewarded.

 

[RyGuy]

Oh man! This is exciting!

 

[Bluffgruff]

It's 720pm on my first hunting day. I have three mature bull caribou at 1000 yards, and four bears that I can see a couple miles the other direction. Of the three bulls, the velvet bull looks the best, but he's only 20" wide. Indecision grips me. Which bull? What about the daylight? What about the bears? After 20 minutes, I decide to come back tomorrow when I can get my head around things. Afterall, I've never seen an adult bull caribou in person; I've done over 10 miles today; I'm 13 miles straightline from the jeep; and I'm worn out again.





I watch the bulls get up and walk over the ridge behind them, farther from camp and the jeep. I back out, keeping tabs on the bears. It's 830pm.

I get back to the tent around 10pm, get my tent set up and make some dehy. I leave my food bag on the ground 100 yards downwind, where I can see it. It'll be fine.

This next picture is from 0948am the next morning, just outside my tent. Look at that rainbow.



It is raining hard and blowing wind 15-20mph at 6am when I first wake up, so I roll over and dooze off.
At 0922am, through my semi-consciousness, I hear the forever burned into my memory huffing breaths of a bear. Rocks are being rolled on both sides of my tent. So now it's bearS, definitely bears. Oh **** **** **** ****.

 

[Bluffgruff]

I'm zipped to the chin in my sleeping bag, but manage to get unzipped to my waist in just a few seconds. My bear spray is unholstered and ready as I lean out to my right to unzip the tent and fly. Pulling it back. There aren't two bears, there are four bears, all standing around my bright blue food bag. I look the other way for 0.01 seconds because why wouldn't their be more bears the other way? Oh good, only four bears.

In retrospect, this was a truly beautiful scene of nature: a sow grizzly, fat, fluffy, shiny blond guard hairs, spiked together by the rain with the sun angling in to set her hair afire in the golden light of mid-morning. She's radiant, powerful, wise. The vision falls apart when you add that her three mostly grown cubs are focused on the bright blue and obviously foreign food bag. One has its paw on it, turning it over, testing it out.

I yell, "hey bears get off my food!" At the volume and with the tone that only seeing bears up close can produce. The cub takes its paw off my bag and looks at me. The other bears look at me. They're too far to spray, too close for comfort. I think, if they get into the food, they won't want to leave it, and if they eat my food, they might eat me too, and even if they just steal my food, my trip is over.

I roll back into the tent, grab my rifle from the other vestibule, extract myself from my sleeping bag, roll to the open side. Bear spray in one hand, rifle in the other, barefoot, in my underwear, as I stand, I bellow like a thousand Scottish warriors, "HEY BEARS GET OFF MY FOOD!"

But the wise sow is already on her way out, trailing her three cubs at a trot over the hill into the alders and beyond. I swivel around for another few minutes, hoping they're gone for good.

I'm so ******* lucky.

This has has all happened in under one minute, maybe even less than thirty seconds, with the best possible outcome at the end. No dead me, no dead or sprayed bear, all my food in the bag.

Apparently, I have camped in a little bit of a saddle at the end of a tall ridge where bears traveling from one major valley to the next like to walk. The sow and cubs have come from upwind. These are different than any of the previous bears I have seen. I think this makes nine different bears in total.

I put my clothes and boots on and send a few inreach messages in case the bears come back and get me. At least someone will know to come find out what happened.