The next morning I rousted the guys out of bed and told them we had a busy morning ahead of us. We had planned to fly back to Tok the following day – but with the weather we had encountered, I didn’t want to chance any weather delays if I could help it. My plan was to get all the meat packed back to camp and bagged up in the morning, call 40 Mile for a meat pickup, and inquire about potentially flying back to town that evening if it fit their schedule.
It has truly been my privilege and good fortune to fly out with 40 Mile Air from 2006 to the present day. They have always been very clear with my group on what they plan to do, and have been flexible in terms of our flyback days when their schedules allowed. On this occasion, they flew in with the Cubs, and took both caribou and young Mike back to Tok, while Mike Sr. and I broke camp.
A couple of hours later they returned to get both of us and our camp, and we were all back in Tok by about 5 in the afternoon. I was glad that we had been successful on the early out – although 40 Mile was able to fly the next day, it was raining steadily and we would have broken camp with everything being a wet, soggy mess.
After a long rainy drive to Anchorage, we were able to drop off about 350 pounds of meat and quarter bones at my sisters house; within 2 days all of the meat and soup bones were cut up and divided among 7 different families. Not the Alaska hunt finale I had envisioned, but a successful one! The weather was the clear winner this year, as remote AK reminded us that she’s the boss, and we’re just temporary visitors to the wild mountains.
