Pappy and I made a trip up the "Haul Road", aka Dalton Highway that leads up the the Arctic Ocean on Prudhoe Bay. You can hunt caribou off the road system there by bow/arrow only due to the proximity of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. Unfortunately we encountered an "Arctic" blast of cold air - with daytime highs around 9 degrees, and night-time lows well below zero, which cut our trip short. We did see a few days of sunny (albeit cold) weather that allowed us to each get about 70 yards away from trophy bulls, but neither of us are willing to take a 70 yard shot, so we had to watch them go by. Several attempts at stalking got us to about 70 yards, but no closer. I saw and stalked more bulls this trip than last year, and got much closer to taking a trophy. Last year's hunt was in August, and was too hot. This year's late Septbember hunt was too cold (with about 2 feet of snow on the ground), so I'd say early September needs to be the time to go on future Haul Road hunts. Took pictures of the Ptarmigan (white grouse-like birds) and musk ox, and one of a huge piece of machinery headed up the road, but didn't get any pics of the caribou since we were busy trying to stalk the ones we could see. We slept in the truck in the crew cab - which made for a cramped living space, but the weather was too unforgiving to attempt the tent. Pappy got the see the Northern Lights, and all in all we had a great time. The drive up was icy (it's a 24 hour drive from home), but we made it ok. Pics of the drive on the way home on the next post.
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