Alaska caribou for me and the wife

[wanderin39]

no biggie, we've brought back fish, bears, moose and caribou. we've become "known transporters" with Alaska airlines and delta. This means we can use the freight desk and they guarantee the meat will be kept in freezer facilities in the terminal. And of course reasonable shipping rates and no size/weight limits (within reason I guess). Brooks range aviation has a hanger you can cut meat in, a meat cooler, and freezers. We ship up tape, knives, cutting sheets, fish boxes and freezer paper and plan to have a day to get it all cut and frozen. We've also rented a VRBO at the end of a trip so we knew we'd have a place to get meat processed before going home. We've used coolers before too but fish boxes are easier to deal with. We brought a 60" moose skull back whole, just wrapped it up good. Alaska airlines is pretty used to dealing with this. It just went in regular baggage. The caribou we split the skull plates in half (mine was very close to making B&C so we checked before splitting as this can cause trouble later if you want to get it scored for the book). Then we packed them all together in one big ball, covered antler tips with rubber hose chunks, wrapped it all in bubble wrap, went in regular baggage.

Thank you very much, this was one of my greatest concerns.

 

[Ono]

no biggie, we've brought back fish, bears, moose and caribou. we've become "known transporters" with Alaska airlines and delta. This means we can use the freight desk and they guarantee the meat will be kept in freezer facilities in the terminal. And of course reasonable shipping rates and no size/weight limits (within reason I guess). Brooks range aviation has a hanger you can cut meat in, a meat cooler, and freezers. We ship up tape, knives, cutting sheets, fish boxes and freezer paper and plan to have a day to get it all cut and frozen. We've also rented a VRBO at the end of a trip so we knew we'd have a place to get meat processed before going home. We've used coolers before too but fish boxes are easier to deal with. We brought a 60" moose skull back whole, just wrapped it up good. Alaska airlines is pretty used to dealing with this. It just went in regular baggage. The caribou we split the skull plates in half (mine was very close to making B&C so we checked before splitting as this can cause trouble later if you want to get it scored for the book). Then we packed them all together in one big ball, covered antler tips with rubber hose chunks, wrapped it all in bubble wrap, went in regular baggage.

Thanks for this, very helpful.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

[Gznokes]

I would definitely say no go with Arrowhead!

Get a bombproof tent. We had one nearly flattened by the wind.
North slope is flat and there is a lot of water, it will be in your tent.
If you do go N. I would say you are going to need some sort of lightweight packable cot to keep you off the floor.

Love my Thermarest Luxury Lite Cot. Great tip!

 

[wanderin39]

I did not know of Arrowhead at all. Will look into them tonight. We have good cots and pads. I just worry a little if our rain gear will be good enough.
Thank you very much for the information.

 

[OXN939]

Love my Thermarest Luxury Lite Cot. Great tip!

Ultralite cots definitely help on the tussocks of the tundra- it can be really tough to find a "flat" place to pitch a tent for hundreds of yards, and cots help to even things out a bit.

As far as tents go, my Mountainsmith Morrison Evo 2 performed admirably. Definitely make sure that whatever you get is sturdy and in 110% waterproof condition, as winds upward of 40 kts are not uncommon.

 

[stickslinger1958]

we've used brooks range aviation twice, they dropped us in the north brooks. they were fantastic. we shipped the vast majority of our food and gear up to them (yea amazon prime goes to bettles!) BRA usually fills up their schedule a year ahead of time though so they might be booked up a bit for 2020 already. we've had below freezing temps the 3rd week of august there, which was great because no bugs! we were super happy with seek outside 6 man tipi setup. Had a bug nest but didn't need it. I slept on a silnylon tarp and thermarest and was just fine. My husband had a cot which made him happy. Also brought ultralight camp chairs and felt like we had a pretty comfy camp. We had a gear fly for cooking/meat area. Brought two bear fences, one for meat, one for tents. Didn't need them but brought lots of piece of mind. We found that a spotting scope wasn't necessary. Had 15x binos on a tripod which we've come to love for all species. My husband wore muck books with sewed on chaps which were money. I wore my well greased kenetreks with gaiters and that was fine too. trip of a lifetime.