Copper Feather Outdoors: Gearing Up

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Gearing Up

Well, it has been a few years since my last caribou hunting trip. My buddy Andrew and I went in 2002 and had an amazing trip. Andrew's father (Ray) will be joining us as well as Andrew's father in law (Keith). This will be a speacial trip as Ray has long dreamed of hunting big game under Alaskan skies.

Ray was instrumental in the development of the love for outdoors in several of my friends and I. He was an eagle scout and avid outdoorsman from his youth. He was a leader in a christian organization called Royal Rangers. RR is basically a Christ-based boyscouts organization. We did everything from basic knot tying to remote father/son 50 mile Canadian wilderness canoe trips to rock climbing to survival campouts to everything else you may imagine.

With so much invested in youth such as Andrew and I, we take it as an honor to "take" him on the adventure of a lifetime. We are much looking forward to helping deliver his childhood dream.

Havin Keith along will also be a plus as he is alot

of fun and knows the ins and outs of Alaskan Big Game hunting. He has been on several excursions and really enjoys the wilderness experience as well.

We will be leaving out of anchorage where Andrew lives and heading northwest to an extremely remote eskimo village. There are no roads in or out and the nearest American road will be about 500 miles away! After landing north of the arctic circle, we will link up with an air taxi or outfitter that will fly us in a bush plane 65 - 100 or so miles (depending on the migration) further into the unknown. Then we are on our own for a while. I love this kind of thing - the planning, the anticipation, the prospect of being left out there and never being found....joking (but I guess there is a chance).

It is great to see the different culture that lives on in the native villages. Sled dogs, whale hunters, seal oil vats that keep meat good year-round, drying salmon racks, and impending winter doom that looms on the close horizon. It always has that feel of seriousness in the air as temps plummet to 80 below ambient, 120 below wind chill only a few weeks after we leave. I absolutely love being up there. I also love getting back to a pancake house the day after flying back out! Nothing beats eggs, bacon, pancakes, coffee, orange juice, toast, etc.. after a long trip such as this.

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The Hounds

This is the world famous pack of deer-finding dogs that mostly just keep our laps warm. From top left clockwise: Sasha, Ruger, Jackson, and Heidi. Jackson enjoys stirring up sibling fights and is a world champion face licker. Sasha mostly enjoys sleepin and laying on hot sidewalks catching some rays. Heidi has two great loves in life - Trän and food. Ruger enjoys good mystery novels, sudoku, scrabble, his favorite subject is math and is doing very well in ancient chinese language studies. He also enjoys biscuitville on saturday mornings.

View from the Top

Andrew and I pulled the 4runner over and picked a mountain to climb to the top of. There is no trail, no sign of humans, nothing but 5000ft of up. There's no much to do when you get there but look through binoculars and take pics. We saw sheep, and mountain goats, and small planes way down below us. I think you can see the curvature of the earth from here. Pictured is the Turnagain Arm just outside of Anchorage. This is the sound that several glacier's runoff and other rivers meet the sea.

Stringer

This a stringer of salmon caught in a short spurt. When the fish are in, they are in. We camped at the confluence of the Russian and Kenai Rivers. Pictured l-r Me, Julie (Andrew's wife), and Andrew. Trän is behind the camera. We stayed here a few days and fished and hiked around in the area. Cooper Landing is the only thing around and is one of my favorite places on earth. Everyone should eat at Gwins Sushi Bar (the only restaraunt in a one horse fishing village - they do not serve sushi). We call this picture "the leg"

Boone and Crocket Caribou

This is a big caribou. It fulfilled the requirements to be considered a trophy book animal. There is no way to caption this whole story, but it includes a 17 day hunt in arctic Alaska, living for a few days in an eskimo village, boating 35 miles up the noatak river, getting inside info from a native as to the best hunting grounds, being 500 miles from the nearest american road, eating MREs for 7 days straight, patching a zodiak raft, realizing the same raft is now irrepairable due to a bad valve, getting rescued by a family of natives that were testing an empty boat to buy (had room for all our gear), shooting 16 bullets and running 3 miles in a mad chase to complete the hunt and finish the kill (knocked scope and didnt know), living in a tarp after the tent was destroyed in a sustained 50 mph windstorm, being left out in the bush a few extra days due to inclimate weather, 17 days with my best friend making a GIANT memory that I will never forget.

Old Droopy

My friend Pat acquired a small piece of land just outside the city limits. We saw alot of deer and smaller bucks in this little overlooked patch of land. I hunted one afternoon and sat through a violent rainstorm (mostly to test my goretex suit for upcoming trips to Alaska). Low and behold out walk about 15 to 20 does right after the storm passes at dusk. Along with this big, wide Buck. This buck was very old and had lived his life eating out of gardens and backyards. I'm glad the goretex suit was working. The story doesnt stop here. My first shot went through the top of a small tree that I didnt see in my scope. Somehow the bullet still hit the deer at about 100 yds. You can see the hole in his shoulder. The buck then ran into the ONLY spot in the grown up weed field that I could shoot. I made a clean second shot and was able to recover the first bullet from the leg. I call this my magic bullet. The Buck had split his entire bottom lip on something. The wound had healed up just fine, but left his bottom lip in two distinct flaps. He looked a little bit like Droopy.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Gearing Up

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Falls Creek Falls

Airing It Out