Caribou Hunting Off The North Slope Haul Road (Sagavanirktok to Ivishak River)

It is that time of year again. The days are a bit shorter, crisp air in the morning and people are starting to think about where they want to set up camp and call for moose or in my case stalk some caribou in the A.N.W.R. off the Dalton Highway on the Ivishak River once again.    I had a stiff learning curve running up the Sagavanirktok and Ivishak Rivers last fall with a couple near disastrous mishaps.  I do believe I will blame those on inexperience with shallow water river running and having only bought the boat a mere week before attempting the hunt in 2010.  Now that I've had a go around and a year to run the boat pretty hard in various rivers such as the Gulkana, Little Susitna, Chena, and the Yukon and Dall Rivers as well. Roughly two months ago, I had the boat shop do a good one over on the motor to get it in prime condition so I wouldn't end up stranded with some silly mechanical issue. I've managed to have a fairly busy week having gone up the Steese Highway Monday to cow moose hunt. Unfortunately all we found was a little black bear on the way back Wednesday afternoon.

http://connect.garmin.com/player/109164930 Cow Moose. Twelvemile Summit: 4-Wheelers.

I had twenty-four hours to get the gear cleaned up the re-orgainized for Thursday morning after getting back into town Wednesday afternoon. I was a bit pressed for time but come Thursday, I was ready.

 At any rate, ready as I'm going to be, Ben and I loaded up the truck and headed north. The truck bed was full as could be since we had decided to bring enough fuel with us to do the entire trip without having to stop and gas up paying ridiculous prices for gas (It was 5.40 per gallon in Coldfoot). So we had borrowed a thirty gallon poly and used all our five gallon cans and filled my boats two-nine gallon cans and tossed them all in the pickup totalling 68 gallons plus another 20 gallons in the truck tank.

We left Fairbanks about 1:30pm on Thursday afternoon arriving at the boat launch on a small braid of the Sagavanirktok about 11:00pm just a few miles north of Pump Station Two. We spoke with a man who had been running the river the last few days and grabbed a bit of beta on who was up river, where a

nd if there there caribou and all sounded well.  We dry launched the boat since there wasn't enough water to float my boat at the launch which seems to be a problem every year.  I'm glad it is to because it keeps most boats out of there.  This hunt is truly for the small man handling tunnel flat bottom jets and air boats. There is of course, the random few who decide

they can do it with their Predator or Extreme Shallow and pretty much destroy their 40K boats on the trip, but hey they made it... kind of...  After launching and loading up the boat with most of the gear which included 28 gallons of gas we pitched a tent next to the truck and crashed out about 12:30.  We were up and boiling a bit of water for coffee by 6:00 am on Friday and revving the motor up shortly thereafter. We started out strong but within a couple minutes we found ourselves pulling the boat off of some rocks in a shallow portion of the Sag. We rounded a couple more corners before getting stuck again.  This continued for a while until we made enough ground up river to get out into the main channel. In all the huss and fuss of pulling the boat off the rocks and making ground up stream, we completely missed the Ivishak confluence and had to turn around and go back down stream and then up into the Ivishak. We made pretty quick work of the Rivers up to camp once we got out into the main channels. By the time we stopped and set up camp we had been on the river for two hours and forty minutes

and covered 21.77 miles.  If I had to do it again, it wouldn't take nearly as long. We had stopped several times to look at the GPS units and track out to the road to gauge the 5-mile minimum distance in addition to having to pull the boat of the rocks when we would get stuck. On the run up we spotted about ten caribou with a couple bulls in the group on the river just shy of the five mile marker. It was a welcomed sign as we continued up. 

http://connect.garmin.com/player/110109640   ----Run To Ivishak Caribou Camp.

Once at camp we hastily unloaded some gear from the boat, set up the tent and headed to higher ground to take a look.  A half hour later we spotted our first caribou and began to head in its direction over a small knob on the tundra. When we reached the top of the knob we spotted about forty caribou about a mile out.

They were too far off at the moment so we decided to continue on after the lone caribou we had spotted in front of us that was just down the other side of the hill somewhere out of sight. Fifteen minutes later we lucked out because we completely abandoned the lone caribou and focused on the herd as they had decided to come our way. Within no time, they were a couple hundred yards out in front of us and we opened up with the rifles. We shot four cows and a bull.  Having already planned on taking cows for meat and possibly a bull or two it worked out perfectly.  However, now we had five animals to gut and cut up. It wasn't until 11:30pm that we had all five back at camp and we sat down to cook up some bacon and eggs. luckily we made it back because before dinner was even done cooking a thick fog rolled up the valley and visibility was down to fifty feet. I was exhausted and barely managed to finish dinner before curling up in the sleeping bag to crash for the day. I was glad to have found the bou on the first morning, it will save us a day on this trip. Always a satisfying hunt when you have five animals hanging in camp on the first night.   Last year I had shot two bulls on the first morning... Saturday morning rolled around and we slept in. Partly because of exhaustion from having to haul all the meat in packs making numerous trips and partly because the fog had not dissipated. It wasn't until 9:30am that the fog had lifted enough to really get the day going. We decided that we had enough weight in the boat that we were more comfortable in making a shuttle of sorts to get it out instead of one heavy trip.  We packed the boat with all our gear and a little more than half the meat and headed down stream to the confluence of the Ivishak and Sag.  We stashed the meat in a shady spot and turned around and buzzed back up to camp to pick up the remaining meat. Once back at the confluence with the second load we sat down and ate a bit of lunch in the sun on the cut bank. This was the bulk of the trip back so we were a bit relieved to be at this point. Its always a little nerve racking while upstream because of the possibility of having mechanical issues and whatnot. I'm generally relieved when I've cut that distance back to the truck. In the process of having to do this meat shuttle we covered 40.51 miles by river.

http://connect.garmin.com/player/110109760 Shuttling Meat to Sag/Ivishak Confluence.

We loaded up the bulk of the meat once more and continued down the Sag to the braid that would lead us to the to the boat launch and made a meat stash again and returned to the confluence to pick up the remaining meat.  Once back at the turn off to the braid we decided to just pack the boat with all the meat and make a run for the boat launch.  We made it down having only to pull the boat off the rocks a couple times. This final leg of the return was 10.47 river miles. 

http://connect.garmin.com/player/110109767 Meat Shuttle from Sag/Ivishak Confluence to Boat Launch.

Ben and I didn't hang around the launch very long, we loaded up the boat and truck and were on our way pretty quick.  We did get visited by a trooper while we were loading up who questioned us about our tags, licenses, and meat retention. However, soon enough, we were pulling back out onto the Dalton Highway around 3:30pm.  We stopped in Coldfoot to eat but we still had plenty of gas in the poly so we filled up a little further down the road at the Koyukuk crossing.  We eventually made our way back into Fairbanks and got the meat set out in a cool basement for the remainder of the night and I crashed by 3:00am.  I was up and about by 10:00 am Sunday and we were cutting up the meat and putting it into the freezer by lunch time.  Another quick trip up north that went well.  No complaints. 

I'm putting a few needed waypoints for the trip. Feel free to use them or drop me a line for questions or additional points etc. I'd like to know if you do use them. Just curious if people actually are using them.. If so I might add more on future ventures.

Pump Station #2   N 69 27'31.5"  W 148 33'32.3"
Dalton Turn Off To Boat Launch  N 69 34'04.3"  W 148 37'06.8"
Boat Launch N 69 34'10.8"  W 148 36'27.6"
Sag Braid Leading Down To Boat Launch From Main Channel  N 69 31'59.1" W 148 32'49.6"

Ivishak/Sagavanirktok Confluence N 69 30'15.4" W 148 30'17.8"

Echooka/Ivishak Confluence N 69 25'01.4"  W 148 16'24.1"




  

Yukon River to Ray and Dall Rivers for Pike Fishing



Yukon Launch to Ray River

Well I have heard the last few years that the Pike fishing on the Ray and Dall Rivers is great... It is time to see if it lives up to the rumor mill.  Having done the fly into Minto Flats for two days a couple few years back, the Dall had some living up to do.  Doug and I made our pact to go check it out for a few days. So about 7:00pm after work on August 4th we left Fairbanks and headed north hauling my 16' tunnel flat bottomed Alweld with a 40 Hp Jet up to the state maintained launch into the Yukon River just downstream of the Dalton Highway / Yukon River bridge.  We had tried to guesstimate our fuel needs and ended up taking 30 gallons of gas on the boat.  By the time we launched into the Yukon, it  was raining and just after 10:00 pm.  Neither of us were too keen on motoring up in the rain since my boat is wide open to the elements so we booked it downstream for a couple miles to the confluence of the Ray River and the Yukon. With such a massive river we skirted the shoreline about a hundred or so feet off incase of motor problems 

Dall River by our Camp

we stood a chance of getting to shore relatively quickly. Even worse if wind made waves swamped my boat I could gun it towards shore and not have far to swim!  We set up a hasty camp on the downstream of the confluence in the rain (I didn't want to run up the Ray due to poor visibility and the possibility of sand bars).  We noticed a lone bear track up our sand bar and several moose tracts. The Yukon is intimidating. Its not a slow moving monster of a river. There IS current and it moves right along.  Definitely not a river to just launch into without some experience. At a mile across and sometimes many miles across, it acts like a lake with current. If the wind picks up valley, you are looking at white caps pushing three foot swells. Not to mention the amount of debris that often is found. from sticks to entire hundred foot trees.  Anyway, that is my Yukon disclaimer!! When morning arrived, it was still raining but we walked around the corner to check out the Ray River Confluence with the fishing rods. 

We spent about twenty minutes casting around the clear Ray waters and I only hooked into one pike which I lost (I did see him and he wasn't worth much of anything). We weren't in too much a mood to fish around since it was raining and we had a long night so we broke camp and skipped out on exploring the Ray River with the boat. We headed up past the launch and underthe dalton highway bridge. We buzzed up probably ten miles before my hands were straight up numb from the wind and rain so I pulled off the river and walked around a bit to warm up. After a good ten minutes, off we went and covered another ten miles up stream into some braids.  It was coffee time. We had been running up stream for about an hour now. We pulled off again in a braid on a little sand bar and cooked up some eggs and side pork and sipped a cup of coffee.  We had no idea exactly where we were. We didn't have a map but we knew if we stayed left for two braids, we would hit the Big Dall River and by Doug's account we were in the second braid so we were close.  Sure enough, another ten minutes of running and we popped around the corner and saw the Dall River.  We buzzed right in and as soon as we got up into the clear water the fishing began!   We hooked into a decent pike over 30 inches in about 15 minutes of trolling up stream.  The water was pretty high and people had told me not to bother with the Dall if the water was high. its best low and clear.  But what the hell, we are already here, the fish are still here, its just a bit more water to fish.  We fished all afternoon and hooked several more but it was pretty slow.  We finally stopped and set up a camp several miles up into the Dall and cooked up some dinner and crashed. I was glad the rain had given up by about the time we had stopped for breakfast, it made the rest of the day enjoyable. I slept hard and woke up ready to catch some fish!  We trolled all day back and forth exploring the east fork for a couple miles and then up the Dall further to the west fork.  We landed one pike just under 40" and had a couple huge hits but missed them.  Probably landed about 20 or so Pike. We settled in for another dinner and curled up in our sleeping bags for night two on the Dall.  We awoke to rain again and with no signs of letting up we opted out of trolling around for the morning and just topped of the gas tank and hit the Yukon downstream back to the launch. The ride down was a lot smoother with less wind. We made good time as expected and before long we were enjoying coffee and breakfast at the Yukon River Lodge.  All in all we caught far less than I was expecting but, like people told me, its probably magnitudes better with lower water. I'm a believer of the Dall River pike. I have zero doubts that there are 50 and even 60 inch pike in that river.  I hope to go back for another round with better water levels. I did learn another valuable Dalton trick, cover your boat with a tarp or you'll have to spend a half hour with a pressure washer just to see the paint again!!

Overall, its about 25 miles up the Yukon and 25 back with some room to play in the Dall say 20 or so miles so plan for AT LEAST 70 miles worth of gas!





Week of Camping and play in the AK Part III

July 27th-30th. We awoke at the Glaciers edge and eager to get the ice climbing gear on and head out so we went back up to where we stashed the gear to find that we had been visited during the night.  Likely a smaller black bear but at any rate, it had put a couple holes in various things we had at the stash like Erin's jacket and my water bottle.  Our food was still high and dry though.  I was glad we had decided to camp down off the trail. Bears are lazy creatures of habit. We ate a quick breakfast and got the climbing gear situated and headed out onto Root Glacier for a day of climbing and hiking.  We wondered a mile or so up on the ice, taking breaks here and there for some short, less than vertical climbing and prussik use/technique schooling. I definitely got fried between the sun and the reflection from the ice. I wish we had found some larger walls of ice to climb but I was satisfied we found something.  Its probably better to get them on something they can climb rather than something that is difficult so I think it went well. We did look for some large bottomless blue pools but all we came up with was some small ones. I surely was not complaining since afterall, its AK and a nice sunny summer day is always welcome!  Before long we had noticed the day was waning and it was time to start to head back down towards our camp. We settled in for some dinner and all found the sleeping bags quite comfortable for the second night down by the Glacier.  I woke up real early to pee and stepped out to see that the clouds had lifted off the mountain tops and had shown us the summits. I woke up the rest of the crew to check it out.  A quick, "wow thats pretty" *click of the camera and then back to bed they went.  We got up the morning of the 28th and were in a bit of a discussion as to what we were going to do with today.  During dinner the night before, Erin had managed to spill hot coffee onto her foot (don't ask me how) and she now had a huge blister on the side of her foot that needed draining every couple hours or so. rather discusting I might say.  Anyway, we all wanted to go up the trail to the Kennicott Mine and check out the rocks.  By the time we had gotten down so the Root Glacier access trail, near where the fork for the mine trail was, it was looking like we were going to be in a rush to head up to the mine in order to get out in time.  We ended up bailing on the mine trail.  It would have to wait for another time. We headed back into Kennicott and found the shuttlebus down to McCarthy were we checked out the little Potato Restaurant and then hit up the museum and walked the half mile back to the foot bridge.  Sixty miles of dirt road later just as we were about to finish the drive out I came around the corner to find a small land slide just covering the road.  The two options are to stop, grab the shovel out of the back and clear it or try to drive over it. worse case scenario is you have to get out and dig out the truck too!  This slide was easy enough and I made it through with a puff of dust getting a thumbs up from the SUV stopped on the other side of it. So with that we were back in Chitina. We walked out to Salmon Point to see how

the dip-netting was going.  I talked with a guy who was almost limited out in a few hours.  I got all giddy and I wanted my salmon for the year so I made the crew check out the Copper River while I put my net in the water.  Erin had to work the next morning so she took off but by two am, 22 Salmon were on the stringer. By now, John and Magdalena were sick of the Copper and tired so we went and cleaned up and crashed at the Fish and Game bunkhouse in Chitina. We didn't manage to get to sleep until nearly three am due to the cleaning and getting out of fishy clothes.  seven am came all to soon with Erin's arrival at work booting us out of the Bunkhouse. We found ourselves no more than a block away at the Chitina Cafe ordering coffee and Reindeer sausage and eggs.  It was Friday morning now and the week is winding down. Hitting the road yet again, we traveled to Valdez and stopped at Worthington Glacier and Bridal Veil along the way to check it out. A beautiful day, we couldn't complain.  We walked along the docks and checked out the boats, ate a nice dinner, went across the bay to see the hatchery pinks returning to the creek and by evening we were driving back up into Thompson Pass.  We parked at a pull out near the top of the pass and hiked in for fifteen minutes and found a nice little spot up on the hill above the road far enough we couldn't see or hear it. We enjoyed the last evening with nice views of a clear evening in Thompson Pass.  Early Saturday we yet again hit the pavement and drove back to Chitina to grab the Salmon that I had left in the deep freezer the other day and then drove to Anchorage. I did manage to get pulled over for speeding but the Tropper let me go. I think he thought I was just tired since I was pulling the boat with dipnets in it and I looked like I had been camping for a week.  I got a warning to slow down and get a soda or coffee if I needed it.  Fair enough, I was tired, just not from dipnetting!  We stopped at the Musk Ox Farm in Palmer but weren't intrigued enough to pay 10 dollars to see one so we just peeked over the fence and then headed up to Eklutna Lake for a little bit just to get out of the truck and walk. Skipped a few rocks and looked at a clouded out Bold and Bashful Peak.  We headed into Anchorage and went up to the Flat Top parking area and Anchorage look out. It was a last ditch effort for a Denali viewing since I know you can catch a glimpse along the road on the way up but alas, it remained elusive. The view was nice enough, just not that far. It was time so I dropped my two old friends off at the airport and started to drive once more.  I made it Honolulu Creek before I pulled off the road and crashed for a few hours.  I managed to get back to Fairbanks by mid-morning on the 31st.  Back to work on the 1st and then off to the Yukon River on the evening of the fourth. I had a few days to clean up the gear and re-organize...  It was a good trip I thought. Fun to get out and about, I have seen most of that stuff before here and there but I always enjoy sharing my little world with people from back home.  We didn't get to do the two things I REALLY wanted them to do.  Denali Flight Seeing Trip and Valdez Salmon Shark Fishing but hey, just the more reason they have to come back I suppose.



Week of Camping and play in the AK Part II

July 24th, 25th.     We drove to Talkeetna in hopes of getting on a Denali flight tour but the weather once again had different plans and the planes were not flying. The lady said stick around for a day and hopefully there would be a break.  Living up here, I knew better than to believe a word she said and we abandoned the Denali flight seeing tour and headed further north to Cantwell were we gassed up and hit the Denali Highway over to Tangle Lakes. Once at the lake we launched the boat and headed down to the outlet and found a nice camping spot, albeit, no where near level, but nice enough. Considering there were blueberries everywhere, we were pretty happy with it!   We quite happily enjoy the first afternoon without any rain and hung out. Our first real break in nearly 36 hours. A cow moose come out onto the lake late evening to feed and we buzzed over in the boat to get a closer look. She wasn't very amused by our curiosity! After a few drinks and fresh Copper River Sockeye I caught a few days prior, we crashed for the night and again woke up in the rain. A quick buzz back to the boat ramp and soon we were on our way to the Tonsina River where my friend Erin had a cabin that we could shower up at. We stopped at Sourdough and since the weather was holding up we decided to toss the boat into the Gulkana River and buzz up river for a bit to check it out and shoot a couple rifles to play around. The little excursion was pretty uneventful other than you get to go under the pipeline as you go up near the launch and I did manage to smack a rock coming down but it wasn't too big a hit. The Gulkana is full of boulders so its pretty much guaranteed to scrap one or two unless you run that river constantly.  After our two hour Gulkana River run, we finished off the drive and enjoyed a hot shower while we re-organize our gear for Kennicott ice climbing and camping.  We met up with my friend Erin in Chitina at the Cafe and had a burger and then hit the road to McCarthy. We were a bit pressed for time since the last shuttle up to Kennicott was at 7:00pm but we made it. Got our gear hauled across the foot bridge and ready for shuttle bus with fifteen minutes to spare!  The weather was pretty decent our here. I was glad we abandoned the Denali area or we would have still been stuck in the rain.  The four of us piled our gear into the near shock-less shuttle bus and graciously took the ride up to Kennicott sparing us from the eight walk in (well worth the ten dollars).   We

wasted no time in headed on up valley and before long we were at the fork for the Root Glacier access and Root Glacier trail.  We took the trail and followed it up close to where Erie Mine was before stopping for the night. Probably a good three or four miles. With all the bear activity, it was decided that we would cook and stash our gear near the trail and then set up camp a couple hundred yards down the slope near the glacier.  We cooked a feast of pineapple, red pepper, mushrooms, Sockeye Salmon, and fresh Prince William Sound

shrimp.  We ate until absolutely stuff and then raised a bag in the nearest acceptable tree with all the food and settled down into the tent for the fourth night.

Week of Camping and play in the AK Part I

I had a couple friends come up from the lower 48 for a week long excursion to see what the AK was all about during the summer.  I had a fairly ambitious week planned and of course the weather changed some of that plan as we went but I thought we covered a fair amount of ground, picking areas with fewer tourists but still just as impressive.  Anyway, here is the synopsis of a week of AK play in July. I should mention, Magdalena snapped all these pictures during their week up here. I'm just snagging some to put on here for show and tell.

July 23rd & 24th...  Their plane landed in Anchorage at 10:30pm on Saturday night and after grabbing luggage, off we went.  A quick hour drive later, we were re-organizing gear, popping open a beer, and parking the truck at the Crow Pass trail head.  We wondered up the trail a mile and a half or so without any headlamps with decent visibility until we crossed tree line.  Found a nice little relatively flat spot and set up camp for the night.  After a day of flying, an hour of driving and another hour of hiking at night, it was time for a rest.  morning arrived all to quickly and we staggered out of the tent and continued to wonder up the trail to the pass where we had a great view of Raven Glacier about 3500' .  I had more planned for the day so the top of the pass is as far as we went on the Crow Pass trail system but it does go all the way through to Eagle River for a good weekend trip.  We meandered back down to the camp site, packed up and went back to the Girdwood coffee shop at the bottom of the hill for a latte and to meet up with a friend of mine. With coffee in hand the four of us piled into the pick up and hit the Whittier tunnel.  My  two friends went out on a glacier cruise of Prince William Sound for the afternoon while Moriah and I attempted to hike a trail in the rain to find the elusive Horsetail Falls. The entire afternoon it rained on the two of us hiking and the two out glacier cruising which is on par for Whittier but still, would have been nice to have a bit of sun!  After being entirely drenched for five hours hiking we met up with the cruisers and hit the tunnel out and settled down at Mooses Tooth with another friend Joshua for dinner. Afterwards we grabbed my little jet boat and began to head north. We tried to get up into Hatchers Pass for the night but the fog spoiled our plans with a thickness that limited the view to twenty feet. I found a pull off near tree line and we pitched the tent for the second night.  It lightly rained on us all night long and by morning I was a little ticked that the weather hadn't been nicer and considering I was dip netting the Copper River in nearly ninety degree weather the week before, a little sun wasn't too much to ask.  I had planned on driving over the Pass and coming out down the road from Talkeetna but I found no point in doing so when morning arrived and the fog had not lifted at all.   We opted to make the drive back down the hill and around to Wasilla before heading north.