Well I am finally ready to start to tell the story.  I will give ya a day or two at a time and try to include the pics.

Day one Sept. 4, 2005 - Jason and I spent the entire day in airports.  Our flight out of Dallas was on time and the weather good up to Chicago.  We got there and called home and John in AK.  When we got to the connecting flight it started to unravel. The flight was delayed 1 1/2 hours for maintenance problems.  Oh good!! We are going to fly over the remote wilderness of the great white north in a "maintenance problem" plane.  Well the 1 1/2 hours came and went and we were informed we were changing planes.  So off we went back across Ohare in search of the new plane.  Well it wasn't there yet.  So we were delayed another hour.  Finally we boarded and took off.  The captain comes on and says that we took on extra fuel and were going to make up some time.  Off with go at mach .82 and make up over an hour to Anchorage.

John met us and we gathered our stuff.  It was now after midnight AK time and 3 am for us Texans.

A short nights sleep at the red roof inn and we started gathering the stuff we forgot.  Two trips to Walmart and Fred Meyers along with a food stop and we were on our way to Tok.

Man it is beautiful country, big mountains, clear streams, glaciers and spruce trees everywhere and that was just in Anchorage.

Lunch time!! be back in a little while.

Mike

Mike,
Don't keep us in suspense!  Can't wait to hear about your time in the Tok area, as I used to live in Wrangell-St Elias Nat'l Park, just south of there.  Hurry up!
L8r
Gary

hmm, man that was a tease and I LIVE here   !

C'mon! This is my dream hunt, so let's go!!

Ok, sandwich down and here we go.

Off we head with the 14 ft Uhaul full of camping essentials on our way to Tok.  It was about 10am before we hit the road so we stopped for lunch down the road 100 miles or so.  This is where we thought till sometime later that Jason picked up food poisoning. (don't eat the chicken)

We soon came to a glacier off in the distance and stopped for our first kodak moment.



We stopped for gas and one more time for nature (glassed sheep while peeing)

and soon we arrived in Tok.  Checked into the motel and went to Fast Eddies for dinner.  That's where we ran into the other Tradgangers.  We were pretty drug out from lack of sleep and adrenaline lows so I'm afraid we weren't very socialable.

It was nice to see Steve again and here about the hunting up til this adventure.  If I remember right they had already tagged caribou, goat and sheep.

We got our gear checked out by the air taxi service and confirmed the need for a couple of extra loads or one 747.



Gotta go work on laundry and dinner.  be right back.

Mike

M

Am I the only one, or is the suspense here almost palpable...    :eek:

It took an hour and a half for a sandwich...no tellin how long a full "dinner " is gonna take!

Glad you guys are back safe and at least in one piece.  Sorry to hear about your knee.  Hope isn't injured too bad.

Bobby

Sounds like fun so far, it's not very often you get to glass a peeing sheep!

wake me when its over.

I need another cup of tea or 12 ..this is gonna take awhile ain't it?   :rolleyes:  

Glad you guys are home safe and sound.

After having suffered food poisioning in Atlanta awhile back on the way to piggy hunt I can definitly sympathize with Jason. Death would have felt better.  

Come on! I could have grown a chicken and BBQ it by now   :D  

More Story! More Story!

 

I love Fast Eddy's, can't stop in Tok with stopping in there. Can't wait to hear the rest of the story, making me homesick.

Dave

Coooome on wingnutty.If'n I lose power again with Rita I won't find out what happened for days.Have a heart man,there's only so much a guy can take  :p  


CB

OK, I figure that I'm off to a meeting that figures to last a couple of hours, I hope that I can at least get the next installment when I get home.  Pleeeeaaaassssseee?????


David

Dang,

This is like reading a mystery thriller.....one page at a time...and the guy is mailing it from around the world. Come on, you're killin us.....  

Well with dinner out of the way in Tok and our gear officially wieghed in we hit the rack.  About midnight it hit Jason back and we were up most of the night hitting the porcelin friend.  Not good!!  We are supposed to fly at 0700 in the am.  It's not going to happen and we rushed Jason to the clinic as soon as it openned.  He was very dehydrated and needed two IVs to get back in the game.  By evening he was human again and we were on schedule for 0700 again.

We arrived at the plane as they were getting them warmed up.  Jason and John loaded into the cubs for a direct flight to our ridge while I jumped into a 206 for a flight to Chicken, AK.  

 

Half way to Chicken we got the bad news, Wind and plenty of it on the ridge.  The Cubs headed for Chicken and met us there.  We spent the day hanging out while the Cubs flew on and got more hunters into other locals.  We did hike up to the cafe and have a nice lunch and get out of the black flys for a little bit.

At 5:30 the cubs were back, but one needed a mechanic so they started ferrying us one at a time, John first, then Jason and finally me.  When I arrived I couldn't believe we were going to land on a 2-1 slope up a tabletop.  But we did and the pilot headed back for the gear loads.

Abot the time I hit camp, Jason's flu bug hit me.  Not good!!  Especially for Jason, because John had head over the hill for water and he ended up carrying all 300# of gear into camp.

The night was not friendly for me with many trips down the hill in a hurry.  By morning, I was pretty sick and sent the guys out hunting while I stayed in bed.

They did spot a legal moose (over 50") about a mile from camp and came back excited.

Tehy poured fluids into me and I took the meds we had for what was giving me the most trouble.

By evening I was ready for a short walk to the spotting area the guys had found and we got a look at four bulls.  One was huge and the other three were over 50" easy.  As darkness fell we settled down for some chow and hit the rack for a better night.  Only had two trips to the tree.


more later!

Mike

I'm waiting with baited breath.This is worst than the Mervins commerical,(open,open).

Sounds like the first few hours of your hunt was more exciting that our whole trip......

ah common Stevo.  People dream of what you and I do on a yearly basis.  I did notice Mike said you killed a sheep.....where in sam heck was my phone call on that one  

I love em when they get drug out!!!

Just like when I was a kid watching Bat Man!!!

"Tune in tomorrow....Same Bat Time, Same Bat channel"