Upriver

 

Its Snow!

 

We didn't do much this past week during the week. The weather has been brutal all week. North wind and cold. Today it snowed hard for about an hour, and then it all melted.

 

Oren Likes to Draw

Yesterday the neighbor Kyle and I took a ride upriver. We've been hearing reports of caribou crossing the Red Dog Road by the thousands. Apparently they had to shut down the road for a while because there were so many. We got a late start, took me almost two hours to get ready for a longer ride like that. We headed out around 11:30. It was extremely nice when we left Noatak. The sun was shining, and it felt about 40 degrees out. Once we got out of town the wind picked up and it clouded over, I felt like I should have worn my parkie.

It took us about an hour to get up to Sugar. We saw a really blonde grizz eating fish on the bank, so we drifted by it to snap a few photos. I briefly contemplated shooting it, but that would have meant the end of our caribou hunt. Floating by at 75 yds was really tempting me to pull the trigger, I even put my scope on it to see what it would look like. The urge to explore farther upriver kept me from pulling the trigger. For all the bear cared we could have been bumps on a log. It hardly even bothered to look up from its fish when I started the motor back up to continue on our way. Kayla and I had a discussion earlier this week. I asked her if she thought she would eat bear meat. She said, "Probably not." I decided I wasn't going to shoot another bear until I finish taking care of the one that I shot last year.

Grizzly

 

I pulled into a little slough by Evelyn's to have coffee, lunch, and to do a little exploring. I was thinking it might be a good place to wait for caribou, but all of the boats kept heading farther upriver. It was pretty cool to see all the salmon spawning in the shallow, crystal clear water. The waterproof camera got some use.

Salmon Spawning

 

After lunch we headed on our way. I had in mind to stop at the bluffs to climb up and have a look. There were 5 boats parked at the bluffs. The caribou were right across to the west in the mountains. It is really cool to gain some elevation. On the river you are so low and its hard to get a good look at the country, but once you climb up on bluffs it seems like you can see forever. I watched caribou moving around on the foothills. There must have been thousands of them. The foothills were dotted with moving caribou.

 

Underwater

I decided to go on a little hike on the east side of the river to the next set of hills. Turns out distances are a lot farther than you think. I hiked for two hours and probably close to 5 miles. The view was impressive. I could see 5 lakes and then the tundra seemed to just stretch to the edge of the mountains. I forgot to take a picture, but it probably wouldn't have done it justice anyway. We waited around until 7 just in case the caribou got anxious and started to move.

 

 On the Bluff

On the way back we alternately drifted and cruised. Its a lot harder to go fast downriver, its harder to tell where the shallow spots are. I had a couple close calls, one with a gravel bar that was camouflaged by the river bank and the other a wrong channel. I did hit once pretty hard going over a riffle. I didn't follow parallel with the current through the shallows. I took it at too much an angle and bumped pretty hard right before it dropped off.

 There's Caribou out There (just need binoculars to see them)

We took the shortcut by boat harbor. I knew it would be shallow, and we would have to drift most of the way. It saves at least a gallon of gas. Ended up being more of a long-cut because time wise its a lot slower. Especially when you decide to try a little bit different route through the one extremely shallow spot because its looks better in the fading daylight. The channel went to about and inch deep and we had to get out and push the boat back upriver to drift through the right channel. We both filled up our boots with water. We had to get out one more time to lighten the boat to drift over another shallow spot and then we were home free. About the only thing good about this shortcut is that I didn't have to try to navigate the really shallow spot going against the current above the pit to make it all the way back to town.