North Slope Trip Recap

[mproberts]

I apologize in advance this post is going to be long. I just figured I owed a recap to all the guys that provided input along the way and also thought it was best to pass along lessons learned and a review of our outfitter while they were still fresh in my mind.

I just finished a 9 day North Slope Caribou hunt with 2 friends (Aug 20-28). In one word the trip was a disappointment. I had been looking forward to this trip for 5 years and had it booked for 2 years, it was also the first real destination hunt for my friends. I think all the excitement paired with relatively high expectations for success (since we aren't really trophy hunters) lead to much of the disappointment with how the hunt turned out. I'm probably somewhere between the 4th and 5th stage of loss right now, equal parts depression with acceptance, so this recap will likely still be jaded some. I apologize again in advance for being a longwinded mopey bear, hopefully down the road I can find some more positives to take out of the experience.. haha.

Pre-hunt days: All went according to plan, our flights got in on time and the rental uhaul was ready. We made great time on the Dalton and weather was warm with bugs when we got to base camp. All reports from base camp were positive, basically 100% of the previous 15 hunters had tagged out (minus a guy that shot a cow and a grandfather that left day 2 after both his grandsons tagged out day 1)

Day 0: We got flown into our first camp early in the afternoon, we were the second group flown in for the day. A couple bow hunters were just pulled off of this lake earlier in the day, both had been successful and they had lots of pictures of good bulls and had put multiple stalks on bachelor groups of bulls. They even reported seeing a herd of around 300-400 pass through the day before. I think all of this reporting is what lead the outfitter to drop us there. The lake was only 6 miles off the Dalton and just outside of the archery only zone. We landed an immediately started glassing up Caribou, although all cows and calves.

Day 1-2: We hiked out to a glassing point and spent the morning glassing up cows and calves, with no bulls in sight. One of our guys started having heart palpitations so we had to request a flight out for him. Young guy in shape, no explainable reason for the issues. After consulting with his doctor and the clinic in Deadhorse it was advised that he get to real medical care. He ended up flying home a day or so later. I also ended up getting the flu day 1 which lasted pretty much the whole trip, but was especially bad the first 4 days. The weather also drastically changed day 1, as a front pushed in with strong cold winds. Temps dropped probably 30 degrees that day. Day 2 we woke p to snow and for the rest of the trip the temps stayed low. I doubt we rarely saw temps above freezing and with pretty constant heavy winds I'm sure the wind chill never got above freezing. We honestly only had the sun come out from the clouds maybe 15 minutes during the whole trip.

Day 3-5: We continued hunting hard each day hiking 2-3 miles in each direction, basically to the best glassing spots and then glassed out to 5 miles in each direction. With good glass and the terrain being flat it was sort of pointless to hike out pass 2 miles from camp. We saw the same groups of cows and calves daily, they would travel very little each day, 1/2 mile at most and then often back to the same spot the next day. After 4 days of not seeing any movement or bulls in the area we requested a move to another spot in hopes of landing closer to some bulls. We were slotted to move day 5 but a packed flight plan and a late day weather front halted the move.

Day 6-9: On day 6 we got moved into a new spot, which was 31 miles north and only like 10 miles off of the ocean. Over the next few days the weather got worse. It stayed cold but we had days where the winds stayed almost constant at 40-50mph and another day were the snow and clouds never broke leading to visibility of a 100-200 yards at most. When the weather was clear we hiked out and glassed a lot of terrain with the same results, no bulls. We did spot up a nice brown bear (if you are the fellow RS member in camp that had a bear tag, pm me.. I've got a story about that), we also ran into some ptarmigan while pushing a creek bottom.

After 10 days in the field without ever seeing a bull or putting in a stalk it was hard to have a real sense of even hunting. It was honestly pretty somber getting back to the van and starting our trip back home. It was a hard hunt with few positive memories, we will likely remember the scenery on the drive up, we saw some amazing terrain and some cool game we had never seen.. like a black wolf, muskox and moose. I think we can also look back positively that at least we stuck it out the whole trip despite being hit hard with weather and just plain bad luck.

I think my main observations were that the weather hurt us the most. I'm no expert but I really got the impression that all the warm weather before we arrived had the bugs up and the Caribou moving crazy distances daily. So when the temps dropped and the freeze happened it was like the Caribou were just incredibly content to stay put (which is all we saw). It's like the music stopped and we just happened to be stuck in locations were no bulls were. I will say that I also got the feeling that the central arctic herd has really been thinned or at least the bull to cow ratio is really really disproportionate. Obviously the change from a 2 to 1 bull NR bag limit is a clue, but even while flying over 80 miles of the tundra we only spotted 2 bulls from the plane, while glassing up hundreds/thousands of cows/calves. I know my luck is pretty terrible, but I would have expected to have seen more bulls while flying.

 

[mproberts]

Here are some observations about gear. I feel like we made a lot of good choices with our gear but the tundra is also a place that makes you pay for your mistakes. Here are a few items that worked out very well.

A high quality Spotter - I can't imagine doing this hunt without one, the tundra is terrible to hike on and we saw a few large cows. Without the spotter we would have hiked so many more miles and honestly probably shot this one very large cow, like I said we weren't trophy hunters and any legal bull would have done.. obviously if you are trophy hunting this wouldn't have been an issue but I was shocked how large some of the cows antlers were. Big bezes, points up top, backscratchers.. but with the spotter she definitely was still a cow.

Sitka Kelvin Lite Puffy Pants - Praise Dexter Grayson for talking sense into me, I literally wore these everyday over leggings and Sitka mountain pants, often with rain gear over them. With the cold and winds and limited hiking possible these were a lifesaver.

Cyclone Stakes - Thanks to all those on here that recommended them. With the tundra being as messy as it was and the winds as heavy as they were.. they were the only stakes we had that worked. Setting up a sheep tarp to break the wind was only possible with them.

Trekking poles - the tundra is nasty stuff, I can't imagine hiking without them especially if we had killed something

Gunslicker - worked great to keep our rifles dry

Helinox Chairs and table - if you have the weight (2lbs each) they were really nice to have. The chairs worked well for glassing although I would get the tundra feet for them next time so they don't sink in as much. The table was great for cooking since the tundra is a wet uneven sponge

A few items that didn't work out as well.

Gore-Tex Hiking Boots - what a terrible mistake. I had read so many reviews about how these would work when used with Gore-Tex gaiters and wiggy waders for stream crossing. I can just say that they failed miserably where we were. Everywhere we stepped 1-4" of water came up from the spongey tundra. Our boots were soaked constantly and the water eventually soaked through our boots. Every morning we put on frozen soaking wet socks and boots, just wishing that someone would have slapped us in the face with muck boots! We mainly went with hiking boots because we feared hiking the tundra with clunky non-supportive mucks or hip boots, but knowing the distances now you are even capable of hiking out there I can't imagine going back with anything but muck boots. We also never came to a creek that was passable with wiggys (so carrying them was pretty much pointless). We might have been able to cross with*chest waders maybe but the current would have likely got us by that point. So I would definitely go muck boots knowing what I know now.

Glassing gloves - We had 2 lighter gloves including FL talus gloves which worked well but when glassing for longer periods in high winds and with everything being wet around us it would have been really nice to have had insulated water resistant gloves. The Sitka merino gloves I brought were garbage, it's honestly unreal how easily the finger tips wear out on them.

Camp shoes - were a waste to bring, even at our camp the water was at least an inch high coming up out of the tundra when you stepped on it. We were basically in boots until we got into our tents.

15 Degree Sleeping bag - I wish I had gone a bit warmer. I ended up sleeping in a good amount of clothes and stuffing my bag with all my extra clothes to stay warm. Also an ultralight cot would have been nice to get up off the cold soaked ground. I think the large amount of water is what helped the cold cut through our sleeping pads and led to us being cold at night.

Bear fence - We rented one but never set it up, the area it covered was pretty small and it was a hassle. We would have likely only used it if we were hanging meat. I can't say it was a total waste but there are likely much better things you can bring for the 5lbs it weighed.

 

[mproberts]

Review of Arrowhead Outfitters

I had seen very mixed reviews on here from past years and figure I would add my take on things.

I would probably rate them 3.5 out of 5. I think they did a lot of things right, but I also think there was room for improvement. First both their pilots were great, no complaints there. Everyone was also really nice and helpful. They went above and beyond to get our guy out when he had health issues and even drove our U-Haul back from Deadhorse for us. They also were not concerned at all about our 70lb weight limit, we packed very light to meet that limit but you could tell others didn't. In our case we had 3 people which took 2 flights in, so that is likely why weight wasn't even close to an issue. I do wish I would have gotten better guidance from them about that before the trip, maybe that wasn't possible.. I don't know but we likely would have been a lot happier with a few more pounds of gear. I do however feel like any question I asked their office staff I got the answer they thought I wanted to hear vs what the likely truth was. Like should we bring fishing gear, "oh yeah tons of fish" vs when we get there and they are like "oh no all the lakes are dead and freeze through in the winter" or when I asked about where they fly and they said at least 30 miles in when the true answer was likely anywhere from 5 miles to 60 miles. At the end of the day I didn't care where they flew us as long as we were on Caribou I just wanted to know so I could download the right maps. I downloaded almost all of unit 26B but still didn't have the right maps because I didn't download anything within 7 miles of the road, because their office said no chance we would be close to that boundary (we were only 6 miles in) and didn't download anything within 15 miles of the ocean because I didn't get the impression from their office we would have been that far north (of course we were 10 miles from the ocean). I will say their recommendation for renting a U-Haul was spot on, that saved us a lot of money and Autumn the rental owner was great to deal with, she picked us up and dropped us off at the airport and even gave us plenty of extra miles on the U-Haul.

I think the main issue was in field communication and their flight capability. They had 2 planes, but 1 was never used due to alternator issues. This ended up making things move a lot slower. They were flying in 15-20 people daily and pulling out or moving about the same, so their one plane basically flew from when the clouds cleared in the morning until probably midnight. I'm sure some groups movements had to have been affected by the lack of 2 planes. I know that we requested a move on day 4 and were on their list for day 5 but weather rolled in around 8-9pm and we had to re-setup camp at the same spot after waiting most of the day for the move. If they would have had both planes running I'm sure there never would have been an issue. I also think communication with base camp was a struggle. At base camp orientation they said call and if they missed it they would always return your call in probably 5 mins or so. We never once got a return call and often times it took calls for hours to get someone to answer. This was even the case after them telling us to call at a certain time which we did, and then basically tried every 15 mins for hours. Yes communications can be bad up there but we wasted way too many minutes just trying to get them on the phone. I'm sure there were other factors at play and it wasn't a huge issue at the end of the day but it did seem like it could easily have been better than it was.

I think all things considered they did a good job and worked hard, especially with only one plane operational. I'm not sure I would personally every do this hunt again, but I think it has less to do with the outfitter and more to do with the herd numbers we personally witnessed and my previous bad luck with the hunt (I might be scarred for life from this hunt lol).

 

[mproberts]

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[weekender7]

Good review, but I can't see the pics. THANKS for taking the time to lay it out, good and not so good.

 

[Kevin Dill]

I think your recap sounds very straightforward and logical. Got nothing but complete sympathy for how you felt then and today. You've probably said and heard many platitudes and clichés..."oh well, that's why it's called hunting"...but they don't help much. The truth is it hurts to put your heart and head into a long-planned hunt and then run into constant problems the entire way. It's truly sad to end a hunt with everyone feeling down and disappointed. The only thing I might say is something you already know. Alaska can be a fickle mistress with all her variables and moods. You can do everything right and have little good come from it. Alaska will defeat you when the weather gets awful, animals disappear, planes break and so much more. It's tough to discover you have almost no control over any of it, and especially when it all spirals downward.

Without messing around in the details, I had a caribou trip go completely wrong when bad (as in screamingly, awfully horribly bad) weather slammed me. I left feeling defeated, but time has given me a different perspective on that trip which I now understand is just a part of all my hunting experiences. Even bad trips can have value, as they help you develop skills and learn about yourself. They're another experience afield, and as Oscar Wilde said: "Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. She gives the test first and the lesson afterward".

Your trip may feel like a failure but it wasn't that at all. Use your experience and knowledge to do another future trip north someday. Thanks.

 

[mcseal2]

Sorry the trip didn't go like you wanted. Thanks a lot for the well done review, after this years moose hunt caribou or Sitka blacktail are my next AK quarry I want to pursue.

 

[mproberts]

Kevin.. thanks for the thoughtful insight. I'm sure time and future success will increase the value of this trip in our minds. I've had some rough hunts in the past, it seems like most of my hunts are of that variety, vice the show up sunny day shoot a trophy type hunts. It still sucks when you put soo much of your limited time, effort and money into something and come away with very little. I think I was honestly more disappointed that my friends didn't get the best trip possible. I have been lucky enough to have done a lot of destination hunts, but for them this was a really big deal that took years of saving and planning to accomplish. I could tell the letdown for them hit harder than it hit me, I've almost grown accustom to things not going to plan. At the end of the day it was out of our control, we did what we could and just have to know we tried. It got to the point where on day 8 we were just going to start hiking in one direction until we ran into bulls and just deal with getting them to the nearest air accessible lake after the harvest, but of course it was basically a blizzard outside that day so even that plan got halted.

It definitely hurts more when you are constantly seeing and hearing about everyone else killing nice bulls. We saw a ton of nice bulls in camp and along the Dalton. Also as fate has it we found a random message in a bottle on the second lake we were at from a group of Texas hunters who hunted the exact same lake 4 years ago and recounted how they killed 6 trophy bulls over the course of 2 days. Then as soon as we got back into cell service I got a call from a buddy that had 3 friends who hunted with our outfitter 2 days before us, and their experience consisted of hundreds of Caribou the first morning, a quick 15 minute sit to figure out which 3 they would be shooting and then the rest of the day processing those 3 trophy bulls. My friend from the trip was literally bashing his head into the hotel bed listening to this story, just thinking about how we didn't even get to see one and how he would have shot any legal bull because all he really wanted was the meat.. haha.

 

[carter33]

mproberts,

Believe I met you up on the north slope, sent you a PM. I will try to provide some info on this thread as well. Sorry to hear of your poor luck, ours was slightly better (2 small bulls taken) and overall I had a great time. I think your observations are basically spot on for gear as well the review for arrowhead outfitters. I did not bring a cot and lent my hunting partner my better pad, I woke up damp to wet every morning in my bag, glad my bag was synthetic.

 

[bowhnt]

Just getting back from my hunt with BRA We were west of bettles 150 miles and basically had the same experience. 4 guys one bull. Shot one the first evening and didnt hardly see a thing the rest of the week. Camp of 6 there when we got dropped off all tagged out. Had camps dropped super close to us which made getting more than a couple miles impossible. Saw more people over the course of the week than bulls. Hunted hard and enjoyed it none the less.


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[Nick Muche]

Just to provide some perspective... My best trip with Arrowhead we killed ZERO caribou and saw thousands. My worst trip with Arrowhead we killed 7 bulls, 6 dandies and a dink.

We had a pretty good hunt up there this year, but didn't fly out.

Weather impacts caribou hunting more than any other factor in my opinion.

The north slope is not where I reccomend anyone wanting to fly out go, much better options out there.

Sorry that your trip went the way it did.

 

[Huntmaster]

It seems like your report from the slope is a typical occurrence. Some camps do great, while others are not so great. I hunted with Brooks Range Aviation on almost the same exact dates. We were a group of 8 flown in to a lake that had good grayling fishing, but we fared just slightly better than you as our group saw 1-3 bulls a day on average. Some days we only saw 6-10 caribou including cows and calfs. We ended up going 3 for 8 and should've been 6 for 8 with only the two diehard bowhunters not tagging out. It was a fun group trip as half of our group had never destination hunted and four were pretty experienced.

We had similar rainy cloudy windy weather with a few breaks mixed in. No snow, but did get down to 25* on the second night. I'll second that the muck boots are a must and not as bad to walk in as I'd figured. I used a 15* marmot helium and was very comfortable just using a pad to sleep on in my tent. I had camp shoes and used them daily. Brought along my hiking poles, but they never left the camp. The rest of the items on your review list I agree with completely. Also, I was one of the guys that didn't tag out. Could've killed two real small bulls with my bow, but wanted something better.

 

[mproberts]

Hey huntmaster.. we definitely ran into you guys a few times in Fairbanks.. you have to post that picture of the bull your buddy shot. That thing was huge!

Thanks again Nick for your input and help before the trip. We were glad to have it and it was really our only insight that weight might not be an issue with them, we packed an extra 5-10 lbs each because of it.

 

[bowhnt]

It seems like your report from the slope is a typical occurrence. Some camps do great, while others are not so great. I hunted with Brooks Range Aviation on almost the same exact dates. We were a group of 8 flown in to a lake that had good grayling fishing, but we fared just slightly better than you as our group saw 1-3 bulls a day on average. Some days we only saw 6-10 caribou including cows and calfs. We ended up going 3 for 8 and should've been 6 for 8 with only the two diehard bowhunters not tagging out. It was a fun group trip as half of our group had never destination hunted and four were pretty experienced.

We had similar rainy cloudy windy weather with a few breaks mixed in. No snow, but did get down to 25* on the second night. I'll second that the muck boots are a must and not as bad to walk in as I'd figured. I used a 15* marmot helium and was very comfortable just using a pad to sleep on in my tent. I had camp shoes and used them daily. Brought along my hiking poles, but they never left the camp. The rest of the items on your review list I agree with completely. Also, I was one of the guys that didn't tag out. Could've killed two real small bulls with my bow, but wanted something better.

For sure. Seems like we heard a lot more reports of slow moving than anything. Seems just about every group we ran into had tough luck.


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[Huntmaster]

Here's his bull. We should've had one more in this class, but the guy that got on him missed a few times.

 

[soggybtmboys]

Hey Mproberts, looks like we have a reunion going on. I was with Huntmaster, my brother and stepdaughter ran back into you guys downtown at the gift shop, after we met at The Pumphouse at dinner. Hope your friend is doing better with the heart palpatations and you guys keep your chins up. We spoke with 2 hunters that were dropped on our same lake the prior week and it sounded like they had caribou all over the place, but the weather was awful, they said they were tent bound for 3 days and pulled out after 5. The older gentlemen, I assumed dad, had killed a decent bull with a rifle and the younger guy did not with a bow but said if he was rifle hunting he would have gotten a bull.

Caribou hunting seems like those animals are completely neurotic and just do whatever without alot of rhyme or reason sometimes, or we just don't understand it. I think the weather played a large part, and we missed a push down thru the passes by perhaps a week. Huntmaster and his partner had a real good view of our valley and adjacent valleys, seems like towards the end of our stay the animals started showing up again, but quite a ways off from camp. Despite only going 3 for 8, I would say we learned alot and personally was one of the best hunting trips I have been on. My friends and camp really made the difference. I was fortunate and killed a decent bull and my stepdaughter was happy with the small bull she killed. Sometimes we go seeking game and adventure, sometimes we find it, but alot of the time we find something even better. Our group and the fun we had we found something great that couldn't be found punching tags, even though it would have been great to go 8 for 8.

I would go again in a heartbeat, and perhaps the same area or maybe somewhere south of the range and take my bow next time.

 

[bmrfish]

Thanks for the excellent recap. That had to be a brutal grim slide of crushing disappointment from the high of years of planning and anticipation to making it happen to getting there and hearing that the guys before you were covered up with critters. I mighta been a little less charitable on the transporter. Great they got you moved. Unfortunate that they put you on another dry hole. The phone communication cluster sounds unacceptably frustrating. A grand adventure at the end of the day nevertheless.


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[mproberts]

I mighta been a little less charitable on the transporter. Great they got you moved. Unfortunate that they put you on another dry hole. The phone communication cluster sounds unacceptably frustrating.

Yeah possibly I’m a bit charitable. I have been on a good deal of destination hunts including public DIY, private DIY, public guided and private guided, but this is honestly my first experience with a transporter type hunt so it’s hard for me to know what to expect. Maybe some guys on here could provide insight but for the price we paid to me you would expect some scouting and intel would be going into where the they were dropping us. In my head I would think if no real scouting went into it then they would at least fly us until we spot bulls and drop us near or ahead of them. I also sort of expected them to at least do a loop around where they were dropping us so we could get the lay of the land and possibly scout something up. I did ask for a quick loop at our second camp but was told there was no need because it was flat, if anyone has ever been on the tundra you know it is very flat but at the same time those small ridges and draws are there. After talking to a few other guys about their experiences I’m starting to feel more and more like I basically just bought three $1000 flights ranging in duration from 5-30 miles, maybe it’s just a crapshoot like that idk, but I never really got a confident feeling about their location selections.

 

[KJH]

Your trip may feel like a failure but it wasn't that at all. Use your experience and knowledge to do another future trip north someday.

This is it exactly. Kevin nailed it.

Alaska weather can be a SOB. I've been on a Caribou hunt where we were weathered in after the hunt was over for 5 more days. I plan and plan and plan my hunts to AK. But I've never had one without some sort of change of plans or uncomfortable situation that I couldn't control. The most important thing I bring with me nowadays is a good attitude and an expectation that something will go wrong. I've had days where I saw thousands of caribou within a quarter mile of camp and the the next couple days you never see a single one... Always leaves me thinking, "what if I showed up a day later?". I get you're frustration. I'm sympathetic to it!

I'm sorry to hear about your bad trip, but 10 days on the north slope is still a 100% win in my eyes... bad weather and no caribou included. Even in this situation, you're still blessed to do a hunt that 99% of all hunter will never get to experience. I guarantee you're a better hunter/outdoorsman for doing the trip and sticking it out.

 

[Gznokes]

Thanks for the candid report. I think your observations are fair. In an ideal world these transporters wouldn't have anything to do but focus on getting you in the absolute perfect spot, but then equipment and commitments to other hunters and the wanderings of caribou conspire. Been there my friend! The hardest part for me to read was your trouble communicating. You have a great hunt coming your way soon!