Well, we really did go chase some caribou. After finding them on Monday, Tuesday was beautiful and would have been the day to go. But I had a work commitment and wanted to make sure I got it done early. That way I would not be out camping stressing about getting back in time to turn in my assignment. So I spent the day at work getting things wrapped up, then took off Wednesday. On Wednesday, the weather was not so great. Wind was nothing remarkable, but the visibility was poor. Hmmm. We sat around a while, spent a little extra time going over our gear, and considered whether we should launch. I had two fools, I mean friends, that wanted to go on this trip with me. But the Island Girl is a nice two person winter camper. It is not a nice three person winter camp hauler. So I was going to need to run back and pick up a second load. Instead, my buddy Rocket agreed to load up with the second fool and bring him after I got out far enough to indicate that the weather was acceptable.
So I launched with my friend Carissa, whose name has not been changed, as we do not protect the innocent or guilty around these parts. She and I headed off runway 26 in Naknek, and the visibility was between 3 and 5 miles. Not my favorite. Not terrible either. It was around zero out, plenty cold, and we held a track for our caribou country while keeping track of the visibility in front of us. Mostly it was five miles or better, sometimes quite a bit better. But sometimes it was dropping down under five miles, and I would pick a lake on the horizon and start timing how long it took us to get there flying at 100 mph. The visibility never got below 4 miles while I was timing it, but I sure don't like flying in restricted visibility in the winter. I also was trying to be mindful that Rocket was following me, and I didn't want to stick him in conditions where he would not want to be out there. I was relieved as I got up near the destination to have the visibility improve dramatically, and blue sky above.
Carissa and I flew around and found the caribou, pretty much right where they had been two days prior. But in looking around, I wasn't sure I wanted to set up camp right there. The lakes they were around had no vegetation and no terrain, so our ability to actually put a hunt plan together seemed a little tenuous. On the other hand, a few miles south we had a couple lakes adjacent to some terrain that had a bit of vegetation cover. That cover would provide opportunity for a stalk, and the hills would give us a place to look for caribou. But it was a few miles from the majority of the animals. On the other hand, we found around 20 animals scattered around near the hills, so it seemed like maybe that would still provide a better opportunity than being totally exposed.
Decision made, we landed and waited for Rocket to arrive with Jay, our other fool, I mean friend.
Rocket didn't hang around, as the weather on the 45 minute journey from King Salmon was just the sort of weather you don't want to find has changed for the worse while you were dallying. So he skedaddled home and we started working on putting up the tent.
I've gotten attached to big tents for winter camping. We had a nice 8 person tent for the three of us. It was just about right. The bottom line is that when it is below zero, you will cook in your tent. No matter what the warning labels say. I've learned that a nice big, oversized tent helps make sure you have the ability to set up a secure, stable kitchen in the tent. So that's how I organize my winter camps. And the two-burner Coleman stove is not prone to tipping, so it makes a better, safer option than the backpacker stoves. We carry water, in this case in a pair of five gallon water containers. You can keep getting liquid water out of the jug for a long time even when it is cold, and it is a lot better than trying to make ice into water. And unless you carry an auger and make sure to camp on a deep lake, getting water out of the lake is not an option...
After we got the tent up, we went up to scout the last look at caribou before morning. They were still out north of us, but we had a beautiful sunset brewing.
The cold starts in earnest when the sun goes down. As we settled in for the night I took some photos of the camp and tried to think of what I had forgotten. Jay had earned his place by bringing a huge pile of ice screws, which made for a great installation of the airplane tiedowns and the tent. I use regular old eyed lag bolts, which also work, but are a little more energy and time to install. The temperature as we buttoned up the tent was minus 4 F. Cold enough, but not bad.
By morning, the OAT gauge in the plane claimed minus 6 F. Also not bad. And it wouldn't have seemed bad at all except when I had to get up to relieve my bladder in the middle of the night...took me a while to warm up after that. But I've been a lot colder.
The morning I got the heaters going to warm up the plane, and we left to chase caribou.
When we climbed the hill, there were still caribou mostly north of us, but some of them were within a couple miles. We wanted to make sure we checked out the area around the hill where the caribou closer in had been the day before, so we started by heading away from the animals we could see in order to look around the back side.
We covered a fair bit of country, and were just about to the end of the south side of the hill, when a lone caribou stood up out of the brush, close to where one had been laying down the previous day in our initial fly over. It was a little distance off, but I motioned Jay to catch up to me. The caribou circled away, but kept stopping to look, and eventually gave Jay a good shot and he hit it. I waited a bit and it didn't drop, so I dropped it for him. I was thinking that we had shot about 300 yards, as it had been a pretty small target. Well, it was a small target. We paced off our approach, and it was a touch over 200 yards, and it was the smallest caribou in Alaska history. It was larger than my dog. But probably not by much. Jay was pumped, as it was his first caribou, no matter how small. I started in cleaning it, and had my hands bloody so no photos. Jay has a couple of photos, but those are his to share, sorry. But trust me when I say...unbelievably small. Probably the size of a deer. Everything is relative, I guess.
I started in quartering and dressing the little bugger and realized I was applying a moose-sized solution to a deer-sized problem. Too late now...but I should have just headed, gutted, and pulled the forelimbs off rather than rendering it into its component parts. We headed back to camp and dropped the game bags off before climbing back up the hill to check on the location of our other caribou options. They had been headed north, and were a little further away. We thought about it, but decided we better start walking and we would decide when we got up there a ways whether it was in the cards or not.
We came to a frozen lake that was between us and the caribou, and the surface was torn up from the snow, rain, wind, refreeze cycle from last month.
It wasn't long after that we realized we weren't going to be able to get to the caribou unless we were willing to return to camp by hiking in the dark. So we aborted the mission and headed back.
The next day we got up early, made a quick run at getting out to where we could get to some caribou, but they had moved on. In fact, there were hardly any in sight, and those were over 4 miles away. So we headed back, broke camp, and got ready to head out. The wind had picked up and was 18-22 according to my handy anemometer. It was rushing in from the northeast, and though the PA-22 is a pretty good little wind plane, I moved it up close to shore to load and start. Rather than back taxi and deal with the ground handling risks, I taxied with Carissa down the eastern shoreline, right in the shadow of the lake berm. We turned and took off right up the shoreline crosswind, and headed for Naknek.
As we climbed out, I dialed in the weather at Koliganek, which was 16 gusting 24, visibility and ceiling good. I dialed in New Stuyahok, and the visibility was 3/4 mile...uh oh. I called a plane that was headed for Koliganek and asked about the visibility to the south...he said it was better than advertised at New Stuyahok...
Still, it would have to be a lot better to be anywhere near acceptable. We just veered a ways east to give it good clearance, and watched the visibility out the windshield go from 8 to 5 to 4, then 3 miles. But by then we were passing Levelock, and I had dialed in the South Naknek weather. Which was reporting 1 mile. I am just really not a fan of one mile visibility. I texted my wife, asking her to get a bit of information from me. About the time I started getting info back from her, I was also getting the King Salmon ATIS, which was reporting 5 miles, with wind 070 at 22 gusting 32. Definitely a lot more acceptable, so we turned and headed to King Salmon. Sure enough, as we approached we popped out into an area that was more like 8 mile visibility or better.
We landed runway 12 in King Salmon, with a lovely, smooth, straight landing, an incredibly short ground roll, and a very careful taxi to the ramp. While my wife came to get Carissa, I got fuel and was headed back out right away. I was very unimpressed with the weather. I was so unimpressed I didn't really think I would make it back a second time. But I figured if a storm was coming in, it would be better if both Jay and I were camped together so he at least knew what had happened. My takeoff roll was probably about 200 feet. Pretty short, and I wasn't even trying to make it short. I headed back into the murk, and it was worse. I was going past Levelock with 3 mile visibility, and it was probably about that for a full 1/3 of the flight back up. On landing at the lake, I came in directly into the wind. I should have planned to measure my ground roll. Boy was it short. I taxied right up next to the tent, and hopped out.
"I didn't expect to see you again. The wind has been picking up, I just figured no way you were coming back."
"Well, I thought about leaving you here, but I knew based on how it was when I came, that I should be able to get back. But I'm not sure you and I are going to make it back home. We can probably camp here or pack up and camp closer wherever we feel we need to stop. I figure we may as well pack up and see how far we get. That way if we do end up camped out, we won't have as much weather to negotiate when we get a window to fly home."
"Sounds good to me."
So we pulled everything out of the tent, all of which Jay had already packed up. Then I packed the tent while he retrieved all his ice screws. I looked the pile over, loaded it up, and then had Jay help me turn the airplane so we could again start up, taxi along the eastern shoreline, and we hopped in. Another crosswind departure and we said goodbye to the area and headed south. New Stuyahok had been reporting 3 mile visibility on my way north, but now it was back down to 3/4 of a mile. Koliganek was reporting 1 and 1/2 miles, with wind gusting in the 30's, so neither of those sound like places we were going to end up. The wind is manageable, but I really don't like flying in those kinds of visibility. So we headed on south, watching the visibility out the front. The timer indicated three miles, occasionally almost down to two miles. I kept wondering if the next lake was going to be the one we would land on. But we kept seeing the next lake on ahead, and kept flying. Pretty soon, we were past Levelock, and I figured I could either land at one of the cabins I know of in the area, or we could stop in at Katmai Lodge on the Alagnak River. I finally pulled up the scratchy weather for both King Salmon and South Naknek, and they were both reporting better than five mile visibility.
And just like that, we popped out into 50 mile visibility, the kind we like up here. The wind was howling, but it was right down runway 8 in Naknek at 20-ish knots, which is where we had started, so where the truck was parked waiting for us. This time I made a conscious effort to pay attention to our ground roll. But I didn't go back and measure it. It was short.
We parked, tied down, and called Carissa for the celebratory dinner arrangements. We all had huge burgers and called it an early evening.
And let me tell you how fortunate I feel to have made it home. We would just be launching right now to come home if we had stayed out there...as it blew 50 most of yesterday. The plane handles 30's just fine, but I am not anxious to find out exactly what the limit is...and yesterday was a no-fly kind of day.
Time to plan the next adventure.
