Looking back at the caribou hunt: Part 2

The strong winds we experienced Tuesday night on our Denali Highway DC485 caribou hunt started to die down Wednesday morning. The dawning sky showed some blue and it finally wasn’t threatening rain!

After a Gnarly Dan-cooked breakfast, the father/son team started loading their gear for the trip home. They planned to drive toward Cantwell and hunt along the way. Earlier in the week, they had found a trail just east of the Susitna which led south from the Denali. This two-rut “road,” so I’m told, was originally developed to support some mines but had deteriorated over the years. However, it was a southern access point which allowed folks to get off the highway and search for caribou and/or moose by ATV.

For the first 40-plus miles of the Denali Highway heading west from Paxson, motorized vehicles were not allowed for hunting access north of the Denali, except in the Tangle Lakes area where travel was restricted to staying on the established trails. If a person went back on one of these trails, hiked a couple of miles from their ATV and shot a caribou, they could not use their vehicle to retrieve the animal. They would have to pack the meat to the ATV.

A lot of folks would say that’s a good thing and I won’t argue. However, my days of long packs over rough terrain to retrieve a large animal are almost over. Much beyond a few hundred yards of backpacking and I would need to be retrieved! I figured if I couldn’t get the ATV relatively close to the kill site, I would have to pass on the shot!

As a result, we concentrated our efforts on the south side of the Denali but only saw caribou a mile or more off the north side.

The sheep hunter, Gnarly Dan, and I spent Wednesday and Thursday road hunting as far west as the Susitna River and along a seven-mile trail a few miles east of our campsite. It was along this trail where we saw the lone bull moose I mentioned last week. When we were almost to the end of the trail, we met a couple of hunters who had been glassing the area all morning. When asked, they said they had had no sightings of caribou.

The sheep hunter planned to leave Friday after lunch, so we concentrated our efforts that morning east of camp since he would be returning to Palmer via the Richardson. We didn’t see any caribou but saw a steady stream of hunters driving into the area. It seemed like every wide spot in the road or pullout had at least one camp set up. If the wide spot was big enough to park two motorhomes side-by-side, then there were often two or more camps set up.

Gnarly and I decided to pack up a day early and head out on Saturday. The plan was to head west toward Cantwell, hunting along the way, and head down the Parks since it was shorter for me to return to Big Lake and Gnarly wouldn’t have to make the trip over from Palmer to drop off the flatbed with my six-wheeler.

The large gravel pit just west of the Susitna was packed with hunters. There must have been nearly three dozen trucks, RV’s, or cars, all with trailers attached. This area is the trailhead for a series of ATV trails leading south from the Denali. I was told that, if you knew the trails well enough, you could connect into the series of trails starting in the Eureka area off the Glenn Highway.

We drove mostly at reduced speeds of 25 to 30 miles-per-hour because of the rough and potholed condition of the highway. Gnarly still ended up with a flat tire which took a little time to replace. About four hours and 90 miles after we had left our campsite, we reached the Parks Highway. The Denali Highway closure for that evening was still several hours away, so we had no trouble accessing the Parks.

After lunch in Cantwell, the drive down the Parks was pleasant and uneventful. The sun was shining and the fall colors along the way were about at their peak. I was repeatedly in awe of the scenery.

I was glad to be going home but, I must admit, I was disappointed we hadn’t gotten an opportunity to harvest a caribou. The slow week hunting was probably why Fish and Game extended the season through Sept. 30!