Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 2017 Northern Brooks Range Caribou

After talking about it and planning for three years, finally made my first trip to Alaska on a Northern Brooks Range drop-in caribou hunt with three great friends. We flew out of Bettles with Brooks Range Aviation (BRA), and were in the field August 17th through the 23rd. Weather pretty much across the board, flew in and set up camp in the rain, two days of complete sun, two cold with snow, rest were rain/clouds mixed. Really no bugs to speak of.

Even though I had seen the "warnings" in other posts, the tundra was still tougher hiking than I had expected and I was surprised how much elevation you could gain and still be in water and have that "boot sucking" sound.

We went 4 for 4 on bulls, and were happy with all of them. Here's a couple pics of my bull, from day three:





Here are 3 of our bulls in camp:



This is all 4 after we had stripped the velvet (which I wish we hadn't done, although a bear "pre-stripped" one of them pretty well):


The trip was made a bit more interesting by having WAY more bear interaction that I had expected. Here's one of the thieving bastards on my buddy's bull (taken through my spotting scope back at camp):


He had taken his bull late in the evening, and we were packing another bull back already, so after gutting we had left this one for the next morning to pack back. Luckily, my one buddy and I were on a ridge across the valley from this as our other two buddies went to break him down that morning as the fog moved in. We saw the grizzly on the carcass and were able to yell at them to go back, after we picked them up in the fog about 150-200 yards from the bear. I know it goes without saying, but that would have been ugly had they walked up on him. We ended up finding his rack after 3 days of searching about 1000 yards over the ridge in the picture. I also lost about 2/3 of the meat from my bull.

Just some random things that worked well for me and I'd definitely have on the next trip:

Simms G3 waders and guide boots.
MSR Guardian water purifier. Filled our nalgenes quickly and kept our 5 gallon jug filled for camp water
MSR Reactor stove system. Boiled 5L of water very quickly in the wind and rain
Cabela's Alaska Guide Geodesic Tents. My buddy and I used the 4 man, other 2 buds had the 6 man. Major tent envy over the 6, great to hang out in for dinner, etc.
Mexicali Rose Instant Refried Beans, with some sausage and rice, outstanding!

Also, got to shake hands and spend a couple days around the BRA hangar with dennisinaz. He's working on their planes this summer, great to meet him and his sidekick Ruby!

All in all, it was a trip of a lifetime for me. I get it now that you really can't understand what that experience is like until you've done it. Hope it won't be my last time there.