Alaska Pipeline Caribou

Since hunting sheep in the Crags last year wasn't enough punishment I decided to do a "Haul Road" caribou hunt this year with a rifle. So, I had to hike in across the tundra a minimum of 5 miles to shoot one with my Ruger. I have come up with a new formula for hiking: 5 miles of tundra = 15 miles of hard mountain trail. Tundra was the toughest walking I ever experienced. Imagine a football field covered in 12 inches of foam rubber, flooded and covered with bowling balls 6 inches apart. Throw in a cloud of blackflies getting in your mouth, ears, eyes and down your throat. Best description I could come up with. Day one, 4.5 miles of tundra out and back. Saw nice bou close to road but left bow in truck. Day two, fogged in - drove to Prudhoe bay to fuel up - bowhunted in the PM but it was too crowded on Labor day weekend. 4 guys after every bull near the road. Day three, crossed river in a chinzy little raft to get away from the crowds and headed for the 5 mile limit. Seeing some nice bou ahead got me psyched. At 5.2 miles a decent shooter came over the ridge and was about 500 yards N. of me. Decided a shooter at 5.2 was better than a guess at what was over the ridge 6 miles out. He was feeding and I started stalking him - sort of. I just bent over and slowly angled toward him - there was no cover to hide behind. He was not concerned and bedded down. At 350 he was locked on to me and watching. At 320 he was getting nervous. At about 310 he got up and started to leave so I laid down, got a good rest and waited till he stopped broadside. First shot a little high but he trotted to the left and stopped quartering away. Second shot went through vitals and broke the far shoulder but he was still up. Third shot was low and it gutted him - literally, they were hanging out. He went a few yards, laid down and it was over. Here's some photos.

My two young friends from France. I hunted with a friend from Fairbanks who works for the Forest Service and they were his interns. Great kids.

Here's a shot of my 'bou. He wasn't a B&C trophy but after going above the arctic circle, hiking some of the toughest terrain I ever dealt with and packing back over that same terrain he is a trophy to me!



Notice I am smiling with my mouth closed. That's to keep the flies out! The blood sent them into a frenzy. I ended up with about 30 bites on each forearm because for a while I had my sleeves up while cleaning him. Here we are loaded for the long walk out. I was packin' about 75 lbs. at this point and my old spinal discs were protesting.

That pipeline is an amazing engineering feat. Getting to see it and drive up the haul road to Prudhoe bay was an adventure itself. I'm glad I got the chance to go and someday I want to go after a trophy caribou.

Nice caribou, congrats.....Yeah that pipeline is amazing, pictures don't do it any justice, it's freakin huge.

Very cool. Congrats.

I drove that road up to Prudhoe Bay summer of '96. I was told it was the first year they opened it to the public. Do they still make you pay $10 bucks to drive you out to the ocean once you get up there?

They wouldn't let us go any further than Prudhoe. Don't know about the taxi service to the ocean, didn't check on that.

You can book a trip to the beach through the Deadhorse Inn

Very cool story and nice Bou to boot! Congrats on a hard earned trophy!