2013 Alaska Moose/Caribou float trip report

[actionshooter]

  I haven't had time to do this yet as its been a busy fall, but things are starting to slow down. I figured its a quiet night, might as well get started. 

 A couple of buddys and I hatched this plan 2 years ago while archery elk hunting in a Montana wilderness area sitting on a hillside glassing. While sitting there glassing, I said, ya know what I have always wanted to do...........and things spiraled out of control from there.. 
 My main research was word of mouth and of course the internet. We knew we wanted to go to Alaska and we wanted a combo moose/caribou float hunt. Our original plan was to be in the field for 3 weeks, but we eventually backed that off to 16 days. We chose a river on the south side of the Brooks range which I won't name.
 We worked out the basics but didn't start any real planning until Oct 2012, that's when the air taxi started taking reservations. After January the planning and logistics became a weekly and then daily process. Lots of phone calls as one of my hunting partners in from Tenn. and the other is from Montana.
 The trip kept growing as I decided to drive the gear to Fairbanks, with my partners send their gear to me via UPS. So I convinced my wife that we might as well make this a vacation for the two of us and she could fly home from Fairbanks. She didn't know what she was in for  Its 2400 miles one way.
 Through the summer I worked on my rowing, and getting gear ready to go.
  My wife and I were on the road the last day of August.
 We left pretty early in the morning, flew through customs with no issues and saw a band of Bighorns maybe 3 hours into Canada. We drove about 10 hours on day 1 and stayed the 1st night out of the back of the truck. I have a bunk with a futon mattress in the truck, gear storage under the bunk and gear in the trailer along with a generator and chest freezer.

More to come....

[Solohunter84]

Tagged. Can't wait for more.  Sounds like an awesome trip

[Hawgdawg]

Tagged. Can't wait for more.  Sounds like an awesome trip

How to you tag?

[Solohunter84]

I'm new... but I am assuming you just post a comment so that anytime a new comment is added it pops up on your new replies tab...

[SemperFidelis97]

If you post on a topic it will show up in your new replies everytime something is posted new on the thread.

[Hawgdawg]

Thanks,
interested in this post at I lived above the circle  and hunted the Brooks range for lot's of critters including Dall sheep, muskox, etc.

[actionshooter]

I have driven through a lot of BC before and you don't really get to (in my opinion) the best parts of Canada until you are in the Yukon, so we really drove hard the 1st few days. We would stop at a hotel every other day as mandated by the wife.  We did see a lot of wildlife considering we didn't stop much.
  My wife was really enjoying herself somewhat to my surprise, she is more of a Mexico vacation kinda person.
 I have always wanted to drive the Alaska hwy from end to end and got my way, MAN it was long. We had somewhat of an idea where we were going to stop, but I didn't even think about bringing a sign for the Watson Lake sign forest. 
 We saw several black bears and I had never heard of the Forest Bison, very cool to see about a dozen of those in different locations. Its hard to tell from the pic, but they are really small.
 Sheep mountain in the Yukon was awesome, never seen so many Dalls in one spot, over 75 on one hillside.

[dewandgin]

Tagging to follow along. Very cool

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2

[wapiti hunter2]

This is one of my bucket list hunts.

[johnnyaustin44]

Tagging. Some day I'll do this.

[KFhunter]

tag

[Annette]

Thanks for sharing...keep going   

[JoeE]

Looking forward to the rest of the story. I'll be doing an Alaskan moose float this coming September.

[actionshooter]

We made it through the Yukon without any issues. The roads are bad, the frost heaves are absolutely horrible. With that said, I think its the most beautiful country I have ever seen. We stopped often but had to keep on the road, we wanted to spend a couple of days in Denali. We only saw one mounty all the way through the Yukon and I thought I was going to get a ticket for sure. 
 Back through customs and we drove into Tok and stayed the night in an RV park. I thought Tok was one of the coolest towns along the trip. The caribou on the car was at the local restaurant, almost wet my pants I was laughing so hard.

 The next morning we were about half an hour out of town when my wife actually saw the lady hit the moose. She was shook up but unhurt, which was incredible. We stayed with here until the Alaska state trooper showed up, over an hour. We drove on to Fairbanks without any other incidents, where we stayed for the night.

[actionshooter]

More