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| "Little" Pathfinder's Alaska Caribou Hunt |
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| Pathfinder101:
Some of the long-time members on this site may remember when my older son (PathfinderJR) graduated from high school 9 years ago and I took him caribou hunting in Alaska for his graduation present. I chose caribou, since being a high school teacher, it’s about the only big game animal that you can hunt before school starts in the fall. https://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,200485.msg2661410/topicseen.html#msg2661410 Well, last June, my youngest son, (Little Pathfinder) graduated from high school and signed with Eastern Oregon University to play baseball and major in education. I had been planning a trip for him as well and we just returned a few days ago, so I thought I would post our story, particularly for those who may want to plan something similar. My sister and brother in law decided they would come on the hunt as well, since caribou is on their bucket-list, and neither of them had ever hunted them before. |
| Pathfinder101:
I had originally intended to hunt with 40 Mile Air out of Tok, since that is who we used last time and we had a fantastic hunt. This was a DIY drop camp hunt with our own gear, and we both killed great bulls. 40 Mile Air has a policy that if you are a “returning hunter” that has booked with them before, you can call in on a set date to book your flight, so that is what I did. Unfortunately, a monkey wrench got thrown in last December, right from the get-go. Apparently, the numbers in the 40-Mile caribou herd have suffered and due to the 2023 winter counts, the decision was made that in 2024, they were not going to issue any non-resident caribou tags for that herd until the 24-25 winter count was done, and bios could assess the health of the herd. 40 Mile Air explained the situation, and said they would take my number and call back in March once the winter count was complete. So, we were stuck in limbo until March, waiting for Alaska F&G to release tags. In March I finally did get a phone call from 40 Mile Air: Good news and bad news. The good news was that fish and game decided that the numbers were good enough to sell us caribou tags. The bad news was that we were number 12 on “the list”, and there were no more spots left for the year. Feeling pretty bummed out, I started calling around to other outfitters and air taxis. Of course, being March, everybody was booked solid. We had just about resigned ourselves to the idea that we were going to have to wait and do this another year, when we got a call back from Trace at Willow Air. He had an opening, as long as we could go early. That worked great for me, since I was going to have to be back in Walla Walla by the 13th of August to start work. We booked our hunt for the very beginning of the season; August 1st. We would fly from Walla Walla to Seattle to Anchorage to Deadhorse, with plans to get dropped in the next day by Cessna on a lake in front of the caribou migration. The plane had floats, not tundra tires, so we would have to go in on water, somewhere between the north slope of the Brooks Range and the tundra that stretches to Prudhoe Bay. Trace said they would drop us based on where they were seeing caribou. |
| Pathfinder101:
July 30th we loaded up on a red-eye, my sister and her husband flying out of Spokane, and LP and I flying out of Walla Walla. We met up in Anchorage and boarded the flight for Deadhorse arriving at about 8 am. |
| Pathfinder101:
Trace met us at the airport to talk with us about the hunt, check our license and tags, and get us checked into the “hotel”. If you have never been to Deadhorse, you might be under the false impression (since it has a name, and it’s on a map), that it is a “town”. It’s not. It’s a work-camp for oil workers. There are no stores, no homes, no businesses other than companies that cater to what oil companies need to operate. The “Hotel” is basically a barracks (very similar to what you would find on a military base) that you pay a nightly rate. There are very few queen or double rooms, most of the 500 or so rooms in the hotel are singles with a single twin bed. Roughly $200 each per night, with meals included. The food is good. Served cafeteria/chow-hall style, the food is good, and it’s plentiful. Honestly, reminded me a lot of the Army. Hard not to “over eat”. Kind of like having Golden Corral for every meal, just not “fancy”. LP has been trying to put on weight to play college ball, so that part was great for him. We were originally supposed to stay for one night, then get put into our hunting spot the next day. |
| Pathfinder101:
Weather delayed us the next morning, so we did commo checks with Trace, his staff and the pilot (Ron, a great guy and a great pilot). I have a Garmin In-Reach and we had planned to use that as our required satellite communications device when we were in the field. Trace seems a little concerned that they hadn’t been seeing many caribou from the air yet. The weather had been hot (over 70 degrees, which in Alaska somehow felt like 90) and animals seemed to be waiting for cool weather to start moving. Most of the herd we were told, had not started migrating yet. Being there that early, we knew that would be a risk when we booked the 1 Aug start date (be aware of this if you go to book this hunt and you have more flexibility than I do). They asked us if we would prefer hunting tundra or mountains, since it looked like we’d be waiting for animals to show up for a few days. Being elk/mule deer hunters, we opted for mountains. Trace also said they would move us if necessary. |
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