I don’t know how we keep doing it, but we seem to draw a mountain
goat tag fairly often. I put both of us in for a new hunt this year on Kodiak
that would require us to fly in (a tag condition I typically avoid), however,
the harvest success rate in this area was through the roof. I figured it would
be a fun adventure if we happened to get lucky. Well guess what? Right before
we left for Danielle’s bison hunt in February, we got the news that Danielle
also drew the Kodiak mountain goat hunt for the fall!
Danielle was nervous. She experienced the terrain with me
during my last Kodiak mountain goat hunt, and it was very difficult and intimidating
for her. She was not looking forward to another hike like that. I assured her
that before I put her in for the hunt, I researched possible routes, and I
found approaches that avoided the nasty steep terrain with the head-high brush/
thorns. This comforted her enough to not feel worried, but it didn’t rid her
anxiousness.
We made plans to hunt early season. This is NOT the time you
want to hunt Kodiak because it can get super warm and the bugs can be terrible.
Because I had a moose hunt already scheduled for the end of September, and I
can’t take too much consecutive time off from work, we were forced to hunt late
August/ early September. After anchoring the dates, I made all the needed reservations…
airline tickets, puddle jumper, accommodations before and after the hunt, and a
babysitter. We convinced Danielle’s Mom, Gayle, to come up and watch the kids
while we were playing on Kodiak.
Gayle arrived a couple days before we were taking off; this
got her comfortable with the routines, kids’ needs, settled in at the house,
etc. Danielle was super organized and made the hand-off to Gayle easy.
We were able to bum a ride off Gayle to the airport while
the kids were at school. Once we were dropped off, it felt odd and refreshing
knowing we had a 10-day date ahead of us (we don’t even go on date nights for a
single night without the kids). We had
no trouble checking our hunting equipment and guns, so we grabbed lunch before
jumping on our flight. A short 60 minutes later and we were at the Kodiak airport.
I have flown to Kodiak before, but this was a first for
Danielle. She loved the fact that we don’t pull up to a terminal in Kodiak… we
simply took stairs down from the airplane and walked to the ticketing building
to gather our bags. After gathering our stuff, we called a cab and checked in
to our hotel. After putting our stuff away, we reserved a ride for the next
morning and then grabbed dinner at Henry’s. We headed back to the hotel early
knowing we had a big day ahead of us.
Day 1
We were up at 6AM in preparation for our scheduled taxi at
7AM. Danielle was on coffee and breakfast duty, while I was tasked with
shuttling all of our gear to the curb. We sat and ate breakfast burritos until
our taxi showed up. Despite our destination only being a couple miles away, it
was a scary drive! The driver was NOT safe; good thing they were in an F150 I
guess.
We arrived at Island Air and checked in. The weather was
absolutely perfect for flying, and apparently was like that for many weeks
prior. This meant the plane season was going great, and no cancellations/ delays
were happening. We unpacked our gear and weighed in… 700 lbs (60 of it being
water and 20 for food). Our pilot showed up shortly after weighing in, so the
gear was loaded on the plane and we got ready to take off.
The weather at the float plane base was replicated in the
sky… zero wind, partly sunny, warm, and very comfortable. Our route had the
potential to get bumpy from turbulence, but that didn’t happen today. We saw a
couple goats on our flight in, but they were in a different hunting area. We
tried to do a few fly bys of the bowl we wanted to hunt, but the winds were
being weird there, so we couldn’t get too close.
We landed in a bay of glass water, called Hidden Basin. This
bay had a few houses on the west side, but only a couple of them had full time
residents (man, that would be an amazing place to live). We puttered over to
the east side of the bay toward a ridge I was hoping we could camp on. We were
able to pull ashore near a shallow beach close to the needed location. I jumped
out, carried Danielle across the water, and helped unload our things. We then stood,
waving at the pilot as he took off, leaving us to fend for ourselves for the
next week.
Our first task was finding a place to camp. We left our gear
on the beach and started walking through the grass. Walking here was extremely
easy despite the grass being about waist high, but that was because there were
brown bear trails EVERYWHERE. And with those trails, poop! This didn’t make us
feel too comfortable. We couldn’t really hike all this gear too far, so we were
limited to camping along these brown bear trails.
We found an absolutely perfect camping spot about 200 yards
away, inside a small valley on some flat ground. There were no trees anywhere near
us, but having three walls fairly close to the tent would keep us safe in case
a nasty Kodiak storm decided to role in. Before we setup our tent, we had to
flatten the waist high grass. I walked off a 20’X10’ perimeter and we
systematically tromped the entire thing.
We then began the grueling task of moving everything from
the beach to our camping spot. Carrying the heavy bags and containers along the
uneven, hole-ridden trail was tiring. The wind was picking up a little bit so
that helped keep us cool. After what felt like a million trips, we had
everything at our base camp site. We took our time setting up the Arctic Oven
tent, cooking/ drinking area, assembling cots, organizing inside the tent, and
setting up a bear fence around us.
We took a break to eat lunch, and the wind died down for a little
bit. That’s when we realized there were white socks (nasty little biting flies)
everywhere. Apparently they like to hang out in the grass, and when they felt
safe to fly, they attacked! We quickly put on our head nets and sprayed deet on
every exposed body part. This worked, but it wasn’t too enjoyable.
Since we flew in on this day, we weren’t allowed to shoot
anything until the next day. Because of this, we weren’t in too big of a hurry,
but we wanted to start hiking the mountain to hopefully camp under a legal
animal to shoot the next day. Before we could take off, we needed to get
Danielle some shooting practice (she didn’t have time to get to the range
before the hunt). I brought extra bullets and some targets for practice. I left
Danielle at camp with the trekking sticks assembled in the shooting position,
while I ventured out to place the targets. I taped one target to brush at 100
yards, and another at 200 yards.
The wind picked up again, so the target was moving a bit
with the breeze. At 100 yards, Danielle was shooting pretty good vital shot
groups. She then moved out to 200 yards, and her first three shots missed the
paper. Stumped, we finally figured out the combination of not supporting the
rifle on the trekking sticks correctly, combined with not adjusting for the
crosswind was throwing off her aim. Once accounting for those, she drilled the
bullseye!
Satisfied with target practice, we loaded up packs in preparation
for hitting the mountain. The forecast predicted the next day to be gorgeous,
but rain likely moving in the following day. Ideally we could drop a goat the next
day and get back to camp before the mountain got slippery. With that in mind, we
secured camp and headed toward the mountain at 2PM.
We had a massive climb ahead of us. From satellite imagery
and the plane, there appeared to be a path that didn’t involve any trees or high
brush, with deer trails scattered throughout. We found this to be fairly true,
except at the base of the mountain. There weren’t many frequented paths since
the deer were able to spread out the lower on the mountain they got. We could
tell where we needed to go with a clear path seen on a ridge about mid mountain.
We simply picked the best route to get us there… hiked through the waist high
brush until we found a deer trail, followed
the trail toward our needed direction, the trail would eventually disappear,
yelled to potentially scare any nearby bears, then we would repeat the steps.
The higher we climbed, the better the game trails got, and a
prominent one stuck out following a ridge most of the way up. The best part
about this hike was no alders! At one point I was goofing around when we were walking
through some tall bushes at a flat area, doing a silly growling sound that
would make Danielle giggle each time, when all of a sudden the brush about 10
feet in front of us exploded. I released an OH SHIT, and a deer sprinted out
the other side of the cluster. We had a good laugh at that scare, and we were
thankful it wasn’t a bear! We actually saw about a dozen deer on our hike up
the mountain as well as a large brown bear walking along the neighboring,
valley creek bed.
There were a few steep spots, but the hike up wasn’t too bad
at all, just long. We were going to crest the top of the mountain, but decided
to follow a flat ridge around the outside of the peak to get a look at the backside
and onto the next mountain in the range. As we circled, we were spooked again
by a different animal… this time, rock ptarmigan. There was a family of rockies
sitting tight to the rocks. These guys do an amazing job of blending in, but
once you know they are there, they seem silly for not trying to escape. A
couple were so close we could potentially touch them.
As we left the birds behind and crested around the edge of
the mountain, we could see a white dot along a ridge that connected the
mountain we were on with the next in line. We knew the white was a goat, but we
confirmed it was a billy after getting a good look through the spotting scope. This
would be an amazing goat to take when we could shoot, but the more we thought
about it, the more we realized there was no good place to camp, and there wasn’t
a good place to approach him in his current position. We decided to rest our legs
and watch him for a little longer as we debated what to do.
After about 30 minutes, he moved along the ridge almost at
the peak of the other mountain and bedded down behind a rock, just out of sight.
That peak was halfway to the area we were wanting to hunt. Since we really had
our hearts set on hunting the third mountain and its bowl, we decided to simply
push the billy toward the third mountain as we continued our path. We then walked
toward the ridge that connected the two, thinking we would be able to simply
use it as a bridge. We soon found out the ridge bridge was not a thing and sudden
cliffs dropped out of the ridge, making it extremely sketchy to hike… something
doable, but not smart.
The billy never saw us so he didn’t get pushed out and just
stayed put. We decided to drop down into the bowl between these two mountains,
then hike up the outside of the far mountain, circling the second mountain in a
similar manner we did with the first. There was a group of large bucks in the
bowl walking in the same direction we were planning to go, so we simply followed
their path. As we started ascending the bowl on the second mountain, we realized
it was a lot steeper than anticipated. There was a couple clear deer paths, but
those things are like mountain goats too. We ended up getting pretty high on
the mountain, then having to side hill on a steep slope. The fact that there
was nothing below us except a massive drop and almost certain debilitating injury
if a fall occurred, made Danielle extremely scared. Regardless, it was fairly
controlled and we were still ascending at an angle (descending is more
difficult and dangerous). I assisted her as we circled the nasty part of the
mountain and got to leveler ground. She had a chance to recover at this time
and swore to never do that again (I don’t think she realized we had to get back
to camp at some point).
The worst was over and we circled the second mountain. Again
there was a ridge between this mountain and the third mountain/ bowl. Once on
the ridge, we had a good view of the bowl and large lake in front of the
mountain more than a mile ahead of us. This lake and bowl was huge… about a
half mile in diameter. While starring in amazement, we quickly realized the
walls of the bowl were littered with white dots… goats everywhere, at least 30
of them!
We were too far away to tell how big they were so we started
to walk the ridge closer. We soon realized this ridge didn’t bridge all the way
to the bowl/ lake area, which was a bummer because that meant we would have to
drop below the bowl and lose elevation. It was getting late at this point,
about 7PM. We decided we better not try to get to the bowl anyway since all the
goats could see everything in it and likely anything approaching it. We crossed
over top of the ridge and started heading down to the head of a valley where we
would be able to find water and a flat spot to camp for the night. This area would
also allow us to watch a few of the goats as they went to bed.
On our way down the side of the ridge, we were stopped in
our tracks when about 100 yards below us stepped out the largest black tail
buck I have ever seen in my life. This thing was an absolute monster! This buck’s
neck was so thick it made his head look small. He was so big it looked like he
ate one of the large bucks we saw earlier. We were shocked at how calm he was,
and how he just stood there, broadside, starring at us, almost begging us to
shoot him. He gave us tons of time to take pictures and discuss the possibility
of abandoning our goat hunt and shooting him. There was no way we could harvest
both a goat and deer in one trip. This guy really tempted us at changing our
plans, but we decided to stick with the goat priority, so we wished him luck as
we let him pass.
We made it to the bottom of the ridge to the flat area. To
our surprise, we could see about a quarter of the bowl wall still, scattered
with many of the goats. One of the goats we could easily tell was a large
billy, off to the side by himself. We knew the goats could likely see us too,
but there was no place we could hide, so we didn’t attempt to. I have slept
under many goats in the past, and as long as you don’t act like a threat and
they are way above you, they don’t feel threatened.
It took a while to find a good spot to setup the tent since
there were rocks everywhere and nothing was really flat. This area was a fairly
dangerous spot to camp with mountain gusts easily reaching 50mph without any
storm system needed. There was no wind break available, so we had to hope for
the best. Luckily there was only a slight breeze while we were setting up. We
got the tent setup and started warming up dinner. Shortly after the water
started boiling, we heard a SNAP. I look over at the tent and the center ridge
pole that goes along the entire top length of the tent broke in two! Not only
did the pole break, but it decided to rip the rainfly cover from the sharp pole
whipping through it. AWESOME! There is no way we could sleep tonight without a
good tent to protect us from the elements. And to top it off, it started to sprinkle.
I told Danielle to continue prepping dinner and I would try
to repair the tent. I always take a pole splint with me and this was the first
time I was going to need it. In order to use the splint, I was forced to cut
the elastic bands inside the poles, slide the splint over, tie the elastic back
together, then slide the splint over and between the broken areas. I then took
Gorilla tape (something I always take and use on each hunt) and taped the heck
out of each side of the splint to ensure it would not slide. This repair only
took about 20 minutes and worked surprisingly good, but now I had to think of a
way to fix the giant hole in the fly… and prevent it from ripping further. I
was hoping the gorilla tape could simply cover it, but it wouldn’t stick. I
tried using my Leuko P tape (used to prevent blisters) but that didn’t stick
either. I hypothesized that the material would be durable enough to sew, so
that is what I attempted.
I take two sewing needles and 50lb test braided fishing line
with me on each hunt. I have needed to use it a couple times, once on a Kodiak hunt
to sew my torn off shoulder strap on my pack (which to this day still holds
100+ pounds). To my amazement, the material was fairly durable and would hold a
stitch. I’m certain if there was enough pressure, the stitch would pull through,
so I didn’t get too aggressive, but I knew I would need many passthroughs along
each tear to ensure less pressure was on each hole. This took an extremely long
time to do, but after about an hour and into the darkness, I was confident my
hand stitches would hold. We tossed the fly on the tent, cinched it down, and
gave high fives that it was going to work. Granted, if it dumped on us, drops
of water would eventually get through the pin holes, but that beats no
protection at all!
We gobbled down our cold dinner, filled up water, watched
some goats bed down for their slumber, and retreated to our tent for the night.
We only walked 5 miles this day, but it was a very long day of elevation changes
and some tough hiking; we were exhausted.
The plan for tomorrow was to get up early and hopefully make
a move on the goats in the bowl. We weren’t quite sure how that was going to
work, but it all depended on where the goats were located in the morning.
Day 2
It got fairly gusty overnight, with the tent folding in and
on top of me many times from the wind. Amazingly, the tent held up and the
repairs stuck!
I’m not sure what time we woke up, but the sun was just
coming over the horizon. We peaked out the tent and could see most of the goats.
They slept toward the top of the mountain bowl and could easily see our tent.
We were hoping they were in a different part of the bowl and out of direct line
of sight, but that didn’t happen. We debated what to do, thinking we could sit
in the tent for a while and hope they move out of sight. We decided that likely
wouldn’t happen with the shear number of them, so we decided to not be sneaky,
and let them see us.
It was going to be a beautiful day, but beautiful days aren’t
really the best for hunting. Sunny and nice isn’t ideal when you need to hike,
be stealthy, or (finger crossed) care for meat. However, I would take a
beautiful day over a miserable weather day.
We got out of the tent, peed, prepared breakfast, and tore
down the tent. We watched the goats as we did all of this, and they didn’t seem
to care at all. The billy we were hoping to go after was now out of reach… he
climbed up a steep draw on the gnarly side of the mountain and was comfortable
resting on a knob we couldn’t get close to.
We looked back toward the second mountain and noticed a solo
goat at the top. We hypothesized that this was the billy we saw along the ridge
bridge the day earlier. He was likely in a spot we could shoot him, but the
approach would have been impossible to keep out of sight. We debated which
option we should go after, and we decided to pursue the groups in the bowl. If
that didn’t pan out, we would be able to fall back on this solo goat on
mountain two on our way back to base camp.
We knew rain was forecasted for the following day, so we
really needed to drop a goat as early as possible. This meant that we didn’t
have time to sit around waiting, and we needed to be aggressive in our pursuit.
By the time we decided which direction we were headed, many of the goats
started to drop into the bowl. There were still about 20 eyes on us, so we had
to start hiking toward the goats with them clearly seeing us. Lucky for us, we
had a descent plan.
As mentioned earlier, this bowl had a large lake in it. Picture
that lake as if it was on a plateau and it was overflowing a ledge like a
waterfall dropping 100 yards to another flat area below it. We were on the flat
area where the water was falling to. The waterfall area was about 700 yards
away, and during that entire distance, as we neared the ledge, the goats would
be able to watch us getting closer. The goal was to get to that ledge as fast
as possible because once there, the angle would be too steep for them to be
able to see us.
Instead of scaring them with two approaching figures, I had Danielle
walk directly behind me as close as possible to try and make it appear as if
only one of us was there. This was kind of awkward walking over the rocky
terrain, but it worked out great. We didn’t stop until we were out of sight and
against the ledge, 100 yards below the flat of the bowl/ lake area. Our next
step, was climbing the ledge.
The waterfall turned out to be more of a creek flowing at a
very steep angle, not free falling. We were surprised to see that it was
actually climbable. There were large steps, boulders everywhere, and the need
to use our hands most of the time… but we scaled the creek safely and creeped
closer to the start of the upper flat.
We found a good place to stop just before cresting over; it
wasn’t flat, but there were a couple rocks that allowed us to keep out bags
from rolling down and let us sit. The problem at this point was the huge number
of goats. It’s easier to kill and approach an animal when it’s by itself, versus
targeting one with 30 of their buddies watching their back. We were hopeful
that a goat was in the bowl near the ledge where we would peak over, however,
it proved impossible to get a view of the bowl. There were still goats toward
the top of the outer mountain area of the bowl, and if we tried to peak over,
they would see us and likely alert the others. A couple nannies were at the top
and in position to spoil our hunt. They were at 300 yards, way too far of a
shot for Danielle, especially with the crazy winds that were swirling in that
bowl. We had to get closer.
I know that hunting goats is difficult, and there inevitably
could be times that the only way to get close to a goat is walking in plain view
directly toward them. Well, we were faced with one of those situations. If we
had time, we could have tried to wait until all goats were down in the bowl, but
the chances of that happening were slim. This meant we would finally use the
white jumpsuit I have packed with me on all goat hunts, but have never used!
Unfortunately, this also meant that only one of us would be able to show
themselves before shooting, and I didn’t have the goat tag.
Danielle wasn’t thrilled with the idea of me staying below
the ridge while she hiked over and toward the goats she was going to shoot, but
she understood the need. In preparation, she stuffed her face with food and
water (you never know how long a sit may happen without your pack), slipped on
the white coveralls, put on the white beanie, took my range finding binoculars,
extended and attached the trekking sticks into shooting position, slung the
rifle over her shoulder, and began crawling out of the ledge toward the goats.
She eventually disappeared out of sight, and I was left sitting in the shadow
of the ledge, waiting for a gunshot.
I got comfortable because I didn’t know how long this would
take. After putting on some warmer clothes and eating a snack, I got into a
position where I could peak over and see a couple nannies. I stared at these
two intensely, trying to gauge their body language and reaction to the white
figure that just crested over the ledge, making its way closer to them. I was
hoping the goats didn’t spook and immediately turn up mountain and move off.
Surprisingly, the opposite happened. I could tell they saw Danielle as both of
them were looking in the direction I believe she was walking, however, instead
of spooking off, both of them bedded down, completely comfortable with Danielle
and their perceived safety. This was very reassuring.
I sat there, with a million things going through my mind,
waiting for a shot to ring out or to see her return over the ledge (the one
thing I didn’t want). It felt like 4 hours, but about 30 minutes after she left,
I was startled by a loud BANG. Danielle let a bullet fly! I stayed put for a minute,
not wanting to spook anything if a follow up shot was needed, but no second
shot occurred. I slowly crawled above the ledge and immediately saw a dead goat
laying on the mountain side with many other goats scattered around looking at
both Danielle and the immobile goat. I walked over to Danielle and gave her a
huge hug… GOAT DOWN!
Danielle said she was super nervous on the approach, but
apparently the goats didn’t care at all. They allowed her to get to a
comfortable, flat spot and set up there. She sat in the open for the entire
time, looking at every goat, trying to figure out which of them were unaccompanied
by a kid. Apparently, every goat she could see was either a nanny or a kid. Billys
are encouraged to be taken, but a nanny without a kid is also allowed. She had
a few options, but the extended time it took was a result of her wanting to be
sure the goat she picked out was indeed solo. Danielle took a 200 yard shot,
straight up, with crazy winds swirling, off two trekking sticks. This is an
extremely tough shot, but she put it right in the boiler room!
We retrieved our packs and brought them back to the base of
the mountain side the goat was on. We hiked up to the goat, gave thanks and
preyed over her. After a few pictures, we debated where we were going to field
dress her. We decided to carry her down the mountain to a more stable and safer
location. We could have rolled her down, but we didn’t want to damage anything.
It wasn’t easy moving this toad, especially with her sharp daggers that tore
into my palms a couple times, but we managed to get her safely to a nice flat
area.
We then spent the next couple hours field dressing the goat.
This is when the wind really picked up. Luckily the sun was out because the insane
wind and massive gusts would have been nasty cold otherwise. It felt like we
were cleaning the goat in a hurricane, except there wasn’t any rain,
thankfully. The weirdest damn thing happened too. Large flies somehow found the
carcass and meat while we were cleaning up in this bowl (where no brush or
anything existed). But not only did these flies find the meat, they could somehow
fly in the hurricane winds! These things were mutants that we had to keep
swatting despite wind that should have kept them at bay.
I love not having to clean harvested animals by myself (that
was the norm for me for a while). I did most of the carcass cutting and Danielle
would debone and clean up the cuts I gave her. Unfortunately for her, I secretly
and vocally don’t trust her with a super sharp knife (many accidents in the
past), so I brought a dullish knife that would not cut her finger off. She
hated it. Maybe one day I’ll recover that trust 😊 We boned out all meat and due to the weight,
I had to make the decision to leave the hide behind. This is normal for many
hunters, but I have never left a hide behind from a mountain animal. It would
not have been physically possible to take it with how much weight we each had
already and how far we had to go before tomorrow.
We decided to take a different route back to base camp. We came
into the bowl along the east side of the ridge that connected the second and
third mountain, but a flat area ran parallel along the west side, and that
looked easier to hike. We crossed through the bowl, walking around the lake.
The sand here was amazingly white and extremely fine powdered, likely from the
pounding winds. We also found a couple tents that the winds decided to destroy
from prior hunters… this would not have been a nice place to camp!
We descended off the bowl toward the flat area where we
would hike toward mountain two. This drop was a little steep, but luckily it
wasn’t too bad and the grass was short and dry. As we got to the flat area, we
saw a huge buck, about 100 yards to our left, eating, without any idea we were
there. Again, we could have easily taken him, but there would have been no way
to get him out. Instead, we just proceeded along our route, eventually spooking
him out of the area. We then proceeded to bump about 10 more deer along this
flat route.
As we got closer to mountain two, we knew we would have to
hike up close to the top in order to circle it and backtrack the scary route we
took on the way in. Getting to that spot was going to be tough. It was a high
hike, and we now had hundreds of pounds of weight on our backs. Slowly but
surely, we made our way to the top and eventually got to the scary part. We
took a nice long break here because we knew we would need fresh-ish legs to
navigate this sidehill with the added weight.
As we began to navigate the steep cliffs, it became clear
that Danielle would not be able to get through this part. She was scared, and I’ll
admit that she was justified to be; it was bad. One slip and it was likely the
last step either of us would take. Although I may have risked it if she wasn’t
there, I’m glad she put her foot down and insisted we go a different route (don’t
tell her I said she was right). The problem with going a different route is
that there really wasn’t a different route to take. The only alternative to getting
to mountain one was to descend the mountain back to the flat we just came from
(losing all elevation we just gained) and follow the flat down into a deep valley
that eventually meets up with the valley the bowl of mountain two feeds into.
The problem with this route was that it was choked full of the thickest alders
that make many parts of Kodiak unhikable. I took a deep breath, realized the
terrible hike we had ahead of us, and started to slowly retrace back down the mountain.
I wasn’t thinking clearly when we got to the flat area as I
was dreading what lay ahead of us. I’m referring to the need to refill water
before hiking through extended areas that didn’t have any…This would later come
back to bite us in the ass.
We started the death march through the alders. There were a
few deer trails here and there, but rarely did they help make the hike easier.
In fact, Danielle got sick of my claiming we were on a trail, only for it to disappear
10 feet later. I was soon banned from claiming our route was on a deer trail.
Yes, this route was the most horrible and difficult path possible, but it was
safer and void of cliffs. We had to drop the same distance into the valley
alders as we just dropped off the mountain to the flat. Then immediately after
dropping that far, we had to recover that elevation. We moved slower than 1mph per
the GPS, but that’s because we had to stop and climb over and around alders every
few feet. The alders were so thick, the sunlight was shaded for most of our
hike. I was so exhausted and mentally drained from the suck, that I became
quiet and slow.
After many hours, we eventually breached above the alders at
the base of the bowl for mountain two. We were so low on the mountain and
exhausted that we didn’t have the desire to hike to the top of mountain one, so
we decided to attempt side hilling it. This also proved to be a terrible idea.
We still had to hike about halfway up the mountain, and side hilling this
extremely wide mountain made the hike even further. Hiking miles with our
ankles at an angle, combined with the weight on our backs and the grueling hike
we already did, resulted in my feet being absolutely on fire. Of all the hunts
and hikes I have done in the past, this one resulted in my neuroma (a nerve
condition in my feet) and heels being the most painful I have ever experienced.
And to top it off, we each ran out of water a few hundred yards into our side
hill around mountain one. When this happened, Danielle could tell my body was
shutting down. Typically I’m good at keeping myself fueled, but I had a weak
moment during this hike and I let my body get too close to empty. She made me
sit down, eat some food, and rest for a while. I was surprised how much I truly
needed this snack break. My body soaked up the carbs and refilled the tanks a
little. This gave me a bit of energy to keep hiking.
Shortly after we started hiking again, dusk was setting in.
I have hiked a load of meat out in the dark many times on hunts, but we still
had the rest of the side hill and entire descent of mountain one to conquer.
Although we had our headlights, we didn’t have energy or desire to push ourselves.
We agreed that the best decision was to camp somewhere for the night and finish
in the morning… despite rain forecasted for the entire day.
We finished the side hilling and ended up close to the top
of the mountain anyway. Surprisingly, we were able to find a fairly flat,
grassy area to pitch the tent that was protected on two sides from nasty winds.
Luckily, on the way in I marked a bunch of potential camping spots, and we
happened to need them this night! We quickly set up the tent as dark was
falling. Thankfully it was a calm night and it didn’t seem like we would get
blown off the mountain, despite being toward the top.
Danielle immediately climbed into bed, exhausted. I needed
to eat, but we didn’t have any water to make our freeze-dried dinners. I packed
another breakfast and lunch for each of us in case we got stuck like this, so I
devoured the next day’s lunch and most of the breakfast.
We still had two miles to get back to base camp. With a long
descent left to hammer out, it would take a while from the heavy loads, adding
rain and slippery conditions would make the hike take even longer. In an attempt
to beat the rain, we planned on waking up early and moving as soon as possible.
It was extremely quiet overnight. The ptarmigan would not be
quite and they were super annoying. Despite this, we both slept pretty hard…
until I started to cramp. I often get cramps when hunting, but these were the
mother of all cramps! I immediately shot up out of the tent, mostly naked,
trying to stretch and rub out the cramps in both of my legs, in every muscle.
The cramps hurt so bad that I was wailing. I could not control them and the
contractions were unbearable. I have no idea how long they lasted, but I felt
like my muscles would never relax. Danielle felt bad for me, but she was more
concerned with me crying out loud, thinking I would call in a bear to attack
this injured animal on the mountain. After what felt like an eternity, my
muscles relaxed. I eventually climbed back into the tent, worried I would have
another episode, but fortunately that did not happen.
A couple hours later, before sunrise, my alarm went off. We got
up at 6AM and prepared for the hike out. It wasn’t raining yet, nothing messed
with the meat overnight, and our muscles felt a little rested. Unfortunately,
Danielle tweaked her knee the day before and the resting made it more painful
as it tried to heal. This was going to make hiking out difficult for her.
There was no breeze today so the bugs came out to play,
BLAH! The were tons of deer out too, but none of them wanted to play with us.
As we descended the mountain, we tumbled a couple times, and we had to take
many breaks to rest my feet and Danielle’s knee, but we eventually made it down
in a few hours. The grass was wet toward the bottom of the mountain, but other
than that, the “trails” were generally great for hiking. It would have been
very difficult to hike that in the dark because we needed to see far in front
of us to ensure we stayed on course, met up with a trail ahead, and steered away
from unhikable areas.
We were hoping to return to a tent and gear that wasn’t
messed with, and to our surprise, that is exactly what we found. The trail that
was a couple feet away from our bear fence had new deer tracks, bear prints,
and bear poop on it. That tells me the bear fence did its job!
We dropped our packs with joy and ran to the water jug. We
quickly chugged water and electrolytes until we were going to pop. The
whitesocks were terrible this morning and the skies opened up with rain, so we
grabbed some food and snacks, then jumped in the tent. We were wet from the hips
down due to the damp grass at the end, but we didn’t want to change until we
were done taking care of the meat. We took naps on the ground while waiting for
the rain to pass over. We didn’t have the cots setup yet due to us leaving to
hunt so quickly.
Once the rain lightened, we got out to tend to the meat.
Everything was soaked now so walking anywhere in this tall grass would
instantly get us wet again. There were no trees around to hang the meat from.
We saw a couple trees next to the shore where the plane dropped us off, but we
decided that was too far to leave meat unattended. After trying to put the meat
in some alders, we decided to try something different. I pulled my cot out of
the tent, staked the meat tarp above it, and set the meat on the cot. This wasn’t
ideal due the bottom half of the meat not getting much circulation, but I would
plan to flip it a couple times a day to ensure it stayed cool and dry. (Next
time I’ll lay branches/ sticks perpendicular across the cot and put the meat on
that, giving it more airflow underneath). This worked really well actually, completely
covered even if we had a nasty storm, and enough space for airflow if the wind
was blowing. The only down side is the meat was now 20 feet outside the front
door of our tent. We did have a second bear fence and we put that around the
meat area. I also sprayed the meat with citric acid to inhibit bacterial
growth. With the warm weather, the meat couldn’t sit there for too many days
before it would go bad.
We were exhausted, so we didn’t feel like venturing too far
away from camp for the rest of the day. We explored the shores nearby to get a
better understanding of our surroundings. It was hightide so we couldn’t walk the
shore as much as we wanted, but we saw quite a bit… seals, ducks, salmon, sea
lions, shells, jelly fish, and fox. We also got a better understanding of why bears
loved this area. The mouth of a stream where it empties in the ocean was about 50
yards away from our tent. Apparently, bears are used to having salmon swim up
this creek to spawn, but for some reason, the pinks were terrible this year and
salmon were basically nonexistent. This meant that bears who knew the fish were
supposed to be there likely took off after seeing it was a ghost town. I guess
that was good to know bears weren’t coming back and forth to feed, but that also
meant the bears that showed up were likely hungry!
We broke open the vodka and electrolyte mixer for a couple celebration
drinks. After sipping and chatting for a bit, we decided we needed to really
secure the tent and meat cover in case a nasty storm blew in. We returned to
the beach to gather large rocks to place on top of each ground stake. I was
quickly reminded of how little gas I had left in the tank.
Dinner was whatever we wanted to eat. We weren’t going to be
here for the entire 10 days now that we dropped a goat on the first hunting
day. There was no need to ration, so we stuffed ourselves silly. Barely able to
move, we rolled around enough to change out of our dirty clothes and freshen
up. We then relaxed for the rest of the evening by watching a movie on my
phone, and eventually dozing off.
Danielle got to sleep on the remaining cot while I cuddled
with the ground. Before shutting down for the night, I rotated the meat and made
sure to pee everywhere outside to spread as much scent as possible around the perimeter.
This probably worked for a good 30 minutes, until it started to rain hard and
likely wash away my deterrent. We slept GOOD that night!
Day 4
We slept in super late. Although we wanted to bring home a
deer or two, we had all week to hunt if we wanted (and didn’t have meat to be
concerned about). This day was going to be an expedition day anyway, and not a
hardcore hunting day… good thing too because I had a raging headache!
It was a gorgeous morning (for us, but not the meat), there
was very little wind, the temperature was comfortable, and the sun was starting
to peak out through the clouds. We decided the meat couldn’t last too long like
this, so we used my InReach (satellite texter) to request a pickup in two
mornings. We then promptly tended to the meat by spraying it again with citric
acid and rotating it.
Our destination for the day was the creek/river bed about a mile
away and the shore line on the other side of the river. We packed lunch, our
hunting gear, necessary layers, and emergency stuff. I wore hip waders in case
we needed to cross deep water.
Our first obstacle was a large field of chest high grass
growing on uneven ground. This was much harder than I thought it would be to
cross, especially when we weren’t able to follow a bear path. Grass that high
is difficult to push out of the way. Luckily the grass was (mostly) dry from the
previous night’s rain. Since the grass could easily hide a bear, we were
yelling and making ourselves known every
5 steps.
Toward the end of the grass field, we had to traverse about 200
yards of thick trees and alders that lined the outside edge of the creek/ riverbed.
The ground was flat here, and it wasn’t too difficult to navigate around. We
eventually popped out on the smooth rocks and as we were standing there looking
up and down the riverbed, Danielle looked down and found a deer antler shed
between my legs!
We decided to walk up the creek/ riverbed first. There were
deer tracks absolutely EVERYWHERE. We walked a couple miles, zig zagging the islands,
splitting up, crossing the water, and constantly looking back where we came,
but we didn’t see a deer. The first animal we saw was a fox taking a nap on the
edge an island area, just outside the tree line. He spotted us and quickly ran
away. Danielle didn’t get a glimpse of him, however, when she was trying to get
a peak, she said she smelled a very musky scent. We realized we had been quiet most
of the hike up the creek/ riverbed and now again while trying to get close to
the fox. This musky scent could have been a bear so we both yelled out for it
to leave.
Shortly after yelling, a small buck popped out in front us
about 140 yards away. It stopped broadside and looked at us. We were clearly
busted and completely in the middle of the creek/ riverbed. We tried to get
ready for a quick shot, but we were not fat enough and he sprinted off.
We decided to eat lunch a little past where the deer popped
out. This area had a large opening above and below where we were sitting, and
mountains on both sides of the river started/ended near this stretch. It looked
very promising if we wanted to sit for the rest of the day, but that was the
last thing we wanted to do with big exploration plans.
We decided to retrace our path back toward the ocean.
Shortly after walking, we looked behind us and saw a large doe crossing between
mountains. We ended up seeing a couple more does as we got a few hundred yards
away from the ocean. Once we got to the ocean, the biting bugs disappeared and walking
flatness improved. There were shells, jellyfish, and interesting things
everywhere on this beach! There were deer and bear tracks everywhere too, but
the interesting thing about these tracks is that they were on the beach below
the last high tide line. That means all of these animals were on the beach within
the last 6 hours!
We walked the beach as far as we could until the cliffs next
to the ocean kept us from going further. We had to turn around at this point.
It’s amazing what someone misses the first time down a beach and then finds on
the return walk. We discovered so many shells we overlooked and even a shed
that was completely buried except for a couple inches of a tine.
We got back to the tent a little before dinner time. We were
thankful to see nothing messed with the meat while we were gone! We clocked 7 miles
for the day and we were starving. The plan for the night was to cook the goat
loins over an open fire on the ridge above our tent, overlooking the ocean. We
collected a bunch of firewood and prepared a safe ring to burn it. I prepared
the meat with olive oil and seasoning and placed it on the small cooking grate
once the embers were perfect. Danielle has never had fresh loin over the camp
fire, and she now knows why it’s said to be the best meat you can imagine… especially
goat! IT WAS SOOOOO GOOD!
We enjoyed our steak, crackers, M&Ms, and electrolytes
plus vitamin v as we watched seals hunt. We reflected on the awesome day we had
full of so much laughter our cheeks were hurting, yelling at bears, goofing
off, and tons of jokes. We didn’t kill an animal today, but it was probably one
of the best days of the trip.
We crashed early because we wanted to get up early to get after
a deer on our last day to hunt. Although Danielle was dreading it (and
secretly, I was as well), we were going up the mountain again because there
were big bucks everywhere up there.
Day 5
We were up at 6AM and faced with a difficult decision. It
rained good overnight, which meant wet grass and slippery hiking up and down
the mountain. This was the straw that broke our decision, and we bailed on the
mountain deciding to play it safe and head back to the river.
We moved slowly now that we were in hunting mode. We only
called out to potentially scare off a bear when we were in thick brush or had
an uneasy feeling. At about 7AM, we peaked out into the creek/ riverbed at the
same place we came out the day before. We started to walk up the creek/ riverbed
and after only 10 yards, we spotted movement along the tree line to our left up
about 50 yards in front of us. We were out in the open again, so we dropped and
froze in our tracks. A doe then walked into the opening, stopped, looked at us,
turned toward us, and then started to walk right to us. She knew we were there,
but was curious what we were. She then walked slowly trying to figure out what
we were. As she closed the gap, two does and a fawn popped out into the creek/ riverbed
a couple hundred yards up ahead of us. They didn’t see us and kept slowly
crossing to the other side.
Meanwhile, the doe continued to close the gap towards us. At
about 10 yards, she decided she was close enough, then skirted around us, and
slowly walked toward the ocean like we weren’t a threat or anything. It was
pretty cool to get that close. Silly deer… it’s a good thing it wasn’t doe
season.
We thought about staying in this area since we saw 4 deer
within the first 10 minutes of getting here. Instead, we decided to stick to
our original plan and head back to where we ate lunch the day prior. We were planning
to be patient, and wait for something to cross our path there. I had a cribbage
board and cards in my pack, so we would stay entertained 😊
There were fresh tracks everywhere from deer that were
moving along this creek/ riverbed since we were there 20 hours ago. We got to
about where we saw the buck the day before, and I spotted movement to my right.
It was a small deer that was slowly grazing toward a patch of trees. It looked
over at me and I quickly stepped backwards so the trees he was going to obstructed
his view of me, then froze. I knew the deer was likely going to continue his
current path walking behind this patch of trees. I told Danielle to quickly follow
me.
We hurried to close the gap between us and the deer. We
could see the outline of it walking and it was headed directly where I thought
it was going. We got to a shooting lane about 75 yards away from the patch of
trees and setup for a shot. I dropped the pack and assembled the trekking sticks
into shooting position while Danielle loaded and prepared the rifle. I got in a
kneeling position and had my binoculars ready. At this point, we didn’t know if
the deer was a doe or a buck, but I was going to be as ready as possible when
it cleared the trees so it didn’t have time to run once we determined the sex.
As soon as the deer peaked its head out from the trees, I could
see it was spike buck. Danielle handed me the rifle and before she could cover
her ears, I ripped a shot at the deer; it dropped instantly. We wondered if
this was the same buck we spooked in nearly the same spot the day prior… we
would never know. We didn’t even make it to our hunting destination and we were
tagged out for the day.
We thanked the animal for its life and prayed over him, also
thanking the Lord for the bounty and the many opportunities we are blessed
with. After looking closer at the buck, I could tell it was a bad shot and I
should not have rushed it so much. I ended up spining the buck and shooting it
too far toward the back, clipping the gut. Unfortunately this results in lost
meat since you really shouldn’t eat anything the gut contents touch (especially
without a way to clean the meat out here, and that gut bacteria being able to
flourish on warm muscle meat). That made this already small buck even smaller ☹
When I dropped the buck, it was nice, cool, and cloudy, but
10 minutes after it fell, the clouds vanished, the sun came out with a vengeance,
and it got hot outside! This was terrible timing. To top it off, the flies
quickly caught wind of the kill and were swarming us.
The deer was small enough and we were in a hurry to cut and
protect it from the flies, so the bones stayed in the meat. As soon as a
quarter or cut of meat was removed from the body, we sprayed it with citric
acid and placed it in a covered meat bag, in the shade of some nearby trees. Danielle
was on meat cleaning duty again, with her dull knife that made her job twice as
hard. The next hunt I will have her wear steel mesh gloves and bring a sharp
knife for her. I make fun of her, but really I’m the one that cuts myself often…
which I did on the first slice of this deer.
By the time we were done cleaning this little guy, we had
time to shoot another, however, we weren’t sure how much more weight the 206
could carry. We didn’t want to go over the 206 allotted weight for something
small and then require a large beaver to come get us with a couple hundred pounds
of available weight not being used. We decided that meant we would not shoot
another buck, unless it was a monster.
We were back to camp before lunch. It was still hot and the
bugs were bad around the tent. We spread the meat out on the covered cot,
hoping it would cool off soon. We then grabbed our lunch and some electrolytes,
and went to eat on the beach. After lunch, it was nap time!
We spent the rest of the evening enjoying each other’s
company, knowing we had a great hunt and we would be picked up tomorrow
morning. We feasted on anything we wanted while playing cribbage (I won of
course) and drinking more vodka. The fun bled into dinner time. The weather
wasn’t the best for another fire and steaks, so we had our freeze-dried meals.
After dinner we were just hanging out in the tent organizing
things listening to music on my phone. In hindsight, this probably wasn’t the
best idea because we couldn’t hear the bear that was sneaking up to our tent!
All of a sudden, we hear a paw thump and then a couple huffs…
we nearly pooped our pants! We looked at each other with chills shooting down
our backs, then both of us started yelling at the bear to get away. I quickly
grabbed the gun and fumbled with the zippers of the two doors that needed open
prior to getting out. By the time I was out of the tent, the bear was gone. Regardless,
I unloaded a couple .44 Mag rounds into the hillside to hopefully keep the bear
from thinking about returning. From that time on, we decided to keep the bear
fences on while we were in the tent during the day.
We started to wind down for the night. We got more organized
and pre staged stuff for packing the next morning. We did some final meat care,
perimeter peeing, and bed prep before passing out for the night. We were
getting picked up at 10AM, so we set the alarm to wake up at 7AM.
D6
We got up to another beautiful morning. The meat wasn’t as cool
as I wanted it to be, but we would get it in a freezer later that day, so I
wasn’t too worried.
Packing took forever! We were setup to last 10 days, and man
did it take a while to tear it all down. It got to a point where we had to get
sloppy and hurry if we wanted to be done by 10AM. We crammed everything into
the bags and tubs and started shuttling them to the beach as fast as we could.
I had my hip waders on again because I would be getting in the water to help
load the plane… this is where disaster struck. I have no ankle support in the
hippers, and on my second load to the beach, I stepped awkwardly, felt a pop in
my ankle, and I forward on the ground and the tub went flying. I was in instant
pain and could barely walk. There were still a few super heavy items left, and
I couldn’t expect Danielle to carry them that far by herself. I had to take
some time to recover, but I was able to hobble back and carry the heavy things with
her (albeit slowly).
Right when we dropped the final tub on the beach, the plane
appeared from behind the mountain. We were sweating and I was cursing in pain,
but it worked out. Next time, I’m planning more than 3 hours to pack up camp!
We loaded the plane and took off toward town. The return
flight was smooth once again, but Danielle still had a close call with seeing
her breakfast. The pilot said it was probably a good idea to get out when we
did because rain and wind was moving in the next morning!
Once we got to the float plane dock, our gear was offloaded,
weighed, and piled up for the taxi. We thanked everyone and headed to our
hotel. Thankfully the hotel had a freezer so we were able to put our tubs of
meat directly in the freezer as soon as we arrived. We settled into our rooms…
showered… hydrated… and caught up from our disconnect with the outside world. We
eventually got around to go grab some lunch. Greasy burgers were exactly what
we needed!
We didn’t have much to do between lunch and dinner, so we
went to the hotel bar to hang out and chat with other hunters in town. We drank
some beers, made some friends from Florida, played pool, played darts, and
eventually found some barbeque to eat. We took our grub to a local brewery
where we ate next to a super weird guy that sat down at our table. That was awkward,
but there isn’t much normalcy going on in Kodiak.
We were pretty much done for the night after dinner, so
headed back to the room to rearrange all of our gear in preparation for flying
home the next day. Luckily, I was able to reach Mom on the satellite texter after
we knew when the float plane was getting us, and I asked her to change our Alaska
Airlines flight times. She was able to get our return flights moved up 4 days
earlier. As such, we were departing around noon the following day.
We started to watch a movie before bed, and as normal,
Danielle fell asleep 10 minutes in. I wasn’t far behind… the exhaustion and
alcohol were hard to fight.
D7
It was raining pretty good when we woke up, so we were
thankful that we got out of the field when we did. We grabbed our frozen meat,
loaded our gear in the taxi, and headed to the airport. It was a fairly
uneventful trip back home. We missed the kids and were thankful to get a 3-day
weekend with them, but it was bittersweet knowing the best date I have ever been
on was over.
