Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Kodiak Goat hunt ends in Medevac

Damn. Too much "adventure", but great story.

Hope Becca has a full and quick recovery.

Steve, Luke and Becca, you all should be proud of how you handled this. Tough hunt and one that will not only hold memories, but also gave some serious lessons.

Chris the guide on my last Goat hunt made the comment after I took a fall-and it wasn't in a dangerous area-that each step you take up here must be a thought out. Hard to do when you are dragging butt.

Glad it all worked out and wishing Becca a speedy return to normal.

Wow, what an adventure,glad everythings going to be OK....Sure does make a case to have a satelite phone for these "out of the way" hunts.

If nothing else at least a SPOT or Epirb unit.

Rost, funny you mention the SPOT. As you probably know the SPOT works on the Globostar system where as our sat phone works on the Iridium system. This experience has just confirmed that fact that I MUCH prefer a sat phone over a SPOT having used both in the past. While playing sat phone tag to the different departments on teh mountain, troopers, Kodiak police, and finally our USCG we were dropping calls even on the Iridium system due to the mountainous terrain we were in and would have to wait (we passed that time by dragging my wife further down the mountain to where a chopper could get close to her) and try calling back in a few minutes. It was invaluable to us to have the ability to have a two way conversation with the folks on the other end and explain the problem and then get the confirmation that the bird was in the air and be there in 30 minutes. Had we just had the SPOT we would have hoped we got the signal out and then sat there wondering if they would send a boat to our base camp 4 miles away or a chopper or if they got the signal at all.

Don't get me wrong SPOTs are a great tool, I use my bros so family can track my wife and I progress on our long 100+ mile backpacking trips, but for emergency rescue and what not a sat phone is hard to beat and $1500 for a phone is a drop in the bucket when your wife is laid up on a steep mountain side with no possible way to get her to where the float plane dropped us off 4000 feet lower and 4 miles away through nasty Kodiak alders. Heck I would have paid 10X that amount for that phone in that situation. Just something to consider atleast as this experience was a learning experience for us and while we were as prepared as one could be given the circumstances, it just goes to show how fast a slip or misplaced step things can go from "Awesome we got a goat lets go back to camp" to broken bones on the side of a steep slippery mountain side.

I never go into the Alaskan backcountry without a sat phone. I've got a SPOT and have yet to register it or even take it out of the box.

I learned something on my most recent AK hunting trip regarding satelite phones. We rented an Iridium and we had lots of trouble with the phone. One of my companions was a communications expert and he related to me that the satelites are in geosynchronous orbits. That means they work best when closer to the equator and performance deteriorates the further north or south the phones go. This is specially pronounced when extremely far north or south. We were hunting above the Arctic Circle and he said that the angle from our sat phone to the satelite was getting close to our visual horizon and that was reducing performance.

KC

KC,

Actually, I think their 66 satellites are in actual orbit and are not stationary.

http://physics-animations.com/Physics/English/ir66_tmp.htm

Concept was that their 66 satellites would "hand off" calls from one going out of range to one coming into range.

Quite the harrowing story, and best to Becca for a quick and complete recovery!

+1. Thank you for posting the account.

Speedy recovery for Becca.

Hope Becca heals well. I can somewhat understand the fear an injury on a goat hunt. I was helping a friend pack out a goat that he'd shot. While working our way down a avalanche chute, with crampons, I fell and we both heard my knee pop!! Luckily it wasn't too bad and I was able to make it all the way out with just minimal discomfort. But, the idea of a serious injury after dark along way from camp and even farther from the vehichle was quite disturbing.