Uncharted Alaska: Solo. Updated 1-18

[Matabele]

Sweet!

[Ray Lyon]

Hard not to mess up your string of posts with a bunch of replies, however I'm all in. Thanks for the journey so far.

[Steve Jr]

This is a great story! The pictures are just beautiful.

 

[elkken]

   

[Rick Butler]

       

[Rough Run]

Don't know whether to keep checking on this for updates, or just binge read in a couple of days!  Love this.  Thanks for letting us in!

[Cyclic-Rivers]

   

[Tater]

Great read so far.......  

[Kevin Dill]

Fairly dependably I fell into a pattern of morning and evening hunts with camp chores and sporadic midday forays in between. On day 2 I spotted a large bull but he was much farther away than I was willing to pursue. I had a self-imposed limit for packing in a moose. That limit could be lengthened or shortened according to intervening terrain. This guy was off limits absolutely. The same basic thing happened on day 3 and I resisted the temptation to go kill a moose in bad terrain. I spent the midday hours assembling my woodstove and splitting a supply of dry spruce firewood.



As I moved about the valley I kept my camera handy and took advantage of photo opportunities.





My backcountry rig:

[maxwell]

Wow, just excellent  

[JakeD]

 I'm loving this so far!

[IndaTimber]

Been waiting for this!!

[Keith Zimmerman]

This is gonna get good!

[kbetts]

Living the dream!

[Kevin Dill]

My camp was situated on the side of this little back channel branch of the main stream. I basically used it as a hidden walking path up and down the valley.



Everywhere I looked there were blueberries in abundance...even excess. They were growing all over my camp area and I could walk nowhere without seeing hundreds of them. I ate them until I simply lost interest.



Not long after arrival I found I wasn't the only blueberry admirer in the neighborhood.

[BrushWolf]

OH MY!!!  

[Kevin Dill]

Cold gray dawn over the valley on about day 4 or 5. I spotted several moose hanging out across the valley up on the hillside burn. One of them was a tremendous bull with excessive total width. I watched with interest as he moved along a corridor of scrub spruce and toward a hidden cove of sorts. I felt like I knew where he was heading and might have a chance to play him. I slipped across the valley and into position on a small elevated knob covered with spruce trees. A couple of nasal cow bawls from me and I waited quietly. I never heard a thing, but 15-20 minutes later he appeared headed toward me...hooking brush and looking for the 'other' moose. His path took him to me but well out of bow range. He hung up at about 75 yards and played me until the wind changed long enough for him to smell me. In 10 minutes he was ½ mile away and going. His rack was gigantically wide and I named him him Airplane right then, because that's what he looked like headed away from me. Damn. Big doesn't mean dumb....or slow.

This is what the inside of the burn looked like in one of the more open areas.



That afternoon I nearly intercepted another massive-racked brute as he made his way down the valley. His closing pace was just too fast and I missed getting into position by 50 yards. He wouldn't come to the call and all I could do was grin as he ambled off into the evening.

[Carcajou]

Kev
I admire your tenacity in both the hunt and the story telling, I am envious to say the least,,,keep it comin'

[ozy clint]

Backcountry hunting like this is so good.

[Kevin Dill]

The days became one much like another and I had to work to keep track of the date. I hunted hard each day and my companion...the stream...was always there. Cold and fast; noisy and full of exuberance on its ultimate trek to the Tanana and Yukon Rivers.



I became less aware of its constant background noise as the days wore on. Some days I saw moose and others I saw nothing but Alaska, which is not such a bad thing really. Always there was something to find, interpret or understand in my quest to learn more about 'my' hidden valley.






I saw no sign of man and no planes flew over. It was almost as though I'd been taken back in time to the age of Pope & Young and dropped into interior Alaska to hunt, survive and tell of my adventure.