Erik in AK
New member
My good friend Charley flew up from the Black Hills to go sheep hunting with me. His son, Charley Jr. works at Denali NP and was coming with us.
In the weeks prior to his arrival therew was some debate as to where we would go we settled on a friend of a friend who was willing to fly us into the upper Wood River...not my first choice due to its popularity with guides and drop-off hunters (like us) but a decent area nonetheless. Monday, I picked Charley up at the airport in Anchorage and we made the 5 hour drive to his son's place in Healy where we discovered that the airline smashed up his beloved (Belgian) BAR.
The barrel and action seemed OK but the stock was deeply cracked at the receiver, and the tube of his new Burris scope was visibly bent. Charley is a retired electrical foreman and ordinarily very, very anal. Even so I didn't notice when he didn't check his rifle before leaving the airport. Tuesday the clouds were glued to the ground so we had all day to battle the airline's customer DISservice Dept, which worked out because all day is about how long it took to talk to an actual human who wasn't a total tard. He finally (after no shit 42 minutes on hold) talked to a supervisor who cut him an extension on filing his damage claim. (NOTE: Check your guns BEFORE leaving the airport)
So we dig out Charley Jr's 270 to salvage the hunt. No problem right? Wrong! Jr. forgot he gave his ammo away last year to a buddy in a bind. (Jr wasn't planning on hunting with us, just "guiding" his dad). Well Wednsday's weather continued the suck front, so we drove up to Fairbanks and bought some (two boxes at my insistence) and a pack of targets. We had to hurry back to Healy because Jr's Mrs is a very insistant young woman and she wanted to have schmancy dinner since we weren't going anywhere. The point of this little digression is that we DID NOT use the public range 10 minutes away from where we bought the ammo. After getting back to Healy and dinner, a quick check of the NOAA site revealed Thursday might be our chance to salvage a two day hunt. We ate early enough to make the hour's drive to a gravel pit in Cantwell which the local use as a range.
I'll give you two guesses to figger out who's rifle had a broken reticle. So we drive back to Fairbanks before Fred Meyer's closes and trundle on back to Healy with a new scope. We quasi bore-sight it in Jr's cabin "living room" and are up at first light Thursday to drive back to the gravel pit. Two hours and 32 .270 rounds later Sr. is content with the scope but isn't "...a hundred percent on having only 8 rounds." Now please bear in mind Sr. is like a surrogate father to me and we're very close, but I replied that I was NOT going back to phucking phairbanks to buy anymore phucking .270 ammo."
We phoned the pilot at the agreed upon 10 am and he informed us although the weather was decent where we were, it still sucked where we wanted to go. We called it quits at that point for flying in. Since the plan was to come off the mountain Saturday and we still had most of Thursday left we tried a last minute Plan B. We drove to the one spot on the entire Parks Highway where a road of any length leads towards the mountains. It leads to an old mine and although only about a mile and a half, it let us avoid a WHOLE lot of bushwhacking which allowed Sr. to get up the mountain on his 64 year old legs and still have some left for the next day.
We got up high and made a nice camp in the lee of some shed-sized boulders right next to a gin-clear, icy cold stream. We picked handfuls of tart-sweet blueberries and were surrounded by breathtaking beauty, and caribou. Dozens of them. Of course they were off limits in that unit so we watched them curiously skirt our camp. We did climb up to the ridge above our camp to glass the adjacent drainages. More magnificent vistas, and some of the sheepy-est country I ever put an eyeball to. All the more frustrating to look upon all that Sheep-gri-la and see nary a speck-o-white. Oh well thats hunting.
On the upside, I did get to spend time in the hills with one of my mentors and best friends, my new MSR SimmerLite back packing stove works like a champ and the airline accepted full responsibilty for the damage so Sr. will get a new case and his pet rife restored.
Of course I forgot the frickin' camera so when Sr. sends me my disk I'll post some scenery pics.
Next Year: Erik hunts alone
In the weeks prior to his arrival therew was some debate as to where we would go we settled on a friend of a friend who was willing to fly us into the upper Wood River...not my first choice due to its popularity with guides and drop-off hunters (like us) but a decent area nonetheless. Monday, I picked Charley up at the airport in Anchorage and we made the 5 hour drive to his son's place in Healy where we discovered that the airline smashed up his beloved (Belgian) BAR.
The barrel and action seemed OK but the stock was deeply cracked at the receiver, and the tube of his new Burris scope was visibly bent. Charley is a retired electrical foreman and ordinarily very, very anal. Even so I didn't notice when he didn't check his rifle before leaving the airport. Tuesday the clouds were glued to the ground so we had all day to battle the airline's customer DISservice Dept, which worked out because all day is about how long it took to talk to an actual human who wasn't a total tard. He finally (after no shit 42 minutes on hold) talked to a supervisor who cut him an extension on filing his damage claim. (NOTE: Check your guns BEFORE leaving the airport)
So we dig out Charley Jr's 270 to salvage the hunt. No problem right? Wrong! Jr. forgot he gave his ammo away last year to a buddy in a bind. (Jr wasn't planning on hunting with us, just "guiding" his dad). Well Wednsday's weather continued the suck front, so we drove up to Fairbanks and bought some (two boxes at my insistence) and a pack of targets. We had to hurry back to Healy because Jr's Mrs is a very insistant young woman and she wanted to have schmancy dinner since we weren't going anywhere. The point of this little digression is that we DID NOT use the public range 10 minutes away from where we bought the ammo. After getting back to Healy and dinner, a quick check of the NOAA site revealed Thursday might be our chance to salvage a two day hunt. We ate early enough to make the hour's drive to a gravel pit in Cantwell which the local use as a range.
I'll give you two guesses to figger out who's rifle had a broken reticle. So we drive back to Fairbanks before Fred Meyer's closes and trundle on back to Healy with a new scope. We quasi bore-sight it in Jr's cabin "living room" and are up at first light Thursday to drive back to the gravel pit. Two hours and 32 .270 rounds later Sr. is content with the scope but isn't "...a hundred percent on having only 8 rounds." Now please bear in mind Sr. is like a surrogate father to me and we're very close, but I replied that I was NOT going back to phucking phairbanks to buy anymore phucking .270 ammo."
We phoned the pilot at the agreed upon 10 am and he informed us although the weather was decent where we were, it still sucked where we wanted to go. We called it quits at that point for flying in. Since the plan was to come off the mountain Saturday and we still had most of Thursday left we tried a last minute Plan B. We drove to the one spot on the entire Parks Highway where a road of any length leads towards the mountains. It leads to an old mine and although only about a mile and a half, it let us avoid a WHOLE lot of bushwhacking which allowed Sr. to get up the mountain on his 64 year old legs and still have some left for the next day.
We got up high and made a nice camp in the lee of some shed-sized boulders right next to a gin-clear, icy cold stream. We picked handfuls of tart-sweet blueberries and were surrounded by breathtaking beauty, and caribou. Dozens of them. Of course they were off limits in that unit so we watched them curiously skirt our camp. We did climb up to the ridge above our camp to glass the adjacent drainages. More magnificent vistas, and some of the sheepy-est country I ever put an eyeball to. All the more frustrating to look upon all that Sheep-gri-la and see nary a speck-o-white. Oh well thats hunting.
On the upside, I did get to spend time in the hills with one of my mentors and best friends, my new MSR SimmerLite back packing stove works like a champ and the airline accepted full responsibilty for the damage so Sr. will get a new case and his pet rife restored.
Of course I forgot the frickin' camera so when Sr. sends me my disk I'll post some scenery pics.
Next Year: Erik hunts alone
