I'm Ian Harford and I'm Steve Wild and we are back in the magnificent
Alaska wilderness for our next adventure. Now, you saw last year we came out and we
were guided by Revelation Mountain Outfitters, who did a fantastic job for us.
We had a pretty successful time, we managed to take two grizzly bears, two black bears, two
caribou and a moose. But, this time we thought we do things a little bit
differently. So, I'm self-guiding and Steve's come to pack out and work his
magic with this knife, so it's a bit exciting this time because we're not
entirely sure how it's all going to work. we're pretty experienced hunters fair to
say? We are pretty experiences and the average hunter goes, yeah. But a
completely different ballgame for us now. It is. So, we put everything together
ourselves, we booked our own licenses, our own bush pilots, hopefully we're
gonna get dropped off in a pretty good spot, we've brought all of our own
equipment, fingers crossed we've not forgotten anything.
Well if we have it's too late brother. It is a bit too late. We're out here
so about 110 miles north of Anchorage a unit 19c and Cole's just dropped us off
on this airstrip, he's gonna go pick up the Piper Super Cub, pick up the rest of
the gear and then take us into camp. So, extremely exciting, very exciting we're
going further up north first of all aren't we after caribou, I hope so and
then when we've completed that a moose hopefully. Yeah. It could be that we were actually camping
in the same spot, the thing is you're never really sure the animals are gonna
be here. But, first we're of all we're going after caribou
see it's even get the animal down and then then move on to moose thereafter
and you never know we might even get this chance of a cheeky black bear, so
yeah really exciting, the weather's turned
beautifully for us. It has been a bit rainy, so it's nice to have some sunshine
and some calm conditions to set up camp. Nobody likes building tents in the
rain, so just go ahead over have a look at the gear that we've got make sure
everything's in place and then wait for our pilot.
An entire years meticulous
planning and preparation has finally led us to the start of our epic journey.
Every item of equipment has been carefully chosen for its specific
purpose and to keep our equipment weight to the bare minimum.
There's simply no space for extra equipment.
Our bush pilot is Cole Hawkins of Hawk Air Alaska. For the heavy loads out of
town he flies Mole M5, but switches to the piper Super Cub to get his deep into caribou country.
The Super Cub has an incredibly short takeoff and landing, but
has limitations to its overall load capacity.
Every ounce is critical.
So, here we are, finally in the big country it's been a year in the
planning and probably about six months worth of really hard graft to get
everything together and we're finally out in a Tundra. Now, this is a
spectacular valley, really high on both sides there's probably gonna be sheeps
at the top caribou little bit halfway down and then in this dense willow down
here perfect habitat for moose. Pretty encouraging so far, the weather's been
amazing, beautiful flights in nice and relaxed just waiting for the other two
guys to come out, now Steve is still back at the airstrip Cole's going to
pick him up. I've got the first two loads of gear here then Mark's gonna follow us
in. What we're going to do is get camp set up this afternoon there's plenty of
water there's a river running over on my left-hand side here and there's a little
brook that's running down here on the right. So, hopefully the light will still
be with us, it's early in the afternoon now get a bit of food and then hopefully
we can start to scan these mountains either side of us, but really great to be
here, spectacular scenery and just need the wild man.
And as if by magic the wild man arrives. Steve and I have hunted
together for many years and we trust each other implicitly. Not only is he
knowledgeable and experienced, but I can rely on him to share the load when
things get tough and they will get tough.
we make a great team and I can't think of anyone else I'd rather be facing this challenge with.
First job is to set up camp and build our shelters. We choose a flat spot close to water and set about
clearing the shrubs ready to pitch the tents.
These helleberg Altoids are the same model we used last year, offering a good level of protection against the
elements and sufficient floor space to accommodate the three of us. However,
there's a knack to getting them up straight which requires a little trial and error.
Once the sleep tent is up we move on to the cook tent which flies up in no time.
Okay, here we are. We've made it into camp, the weather is absolutely glorious,
pretty much how it was last year when we came.
We've set up camp right next this creek bed, so we've got no issues
with fetching water. We've set up so I'm just going to show you around the camp
now. The first tenth here, this is our sleeping quarters for the trip so come
and have a look in here. As you can see we've got cots in here, which are the
raised beds because we're spending such a long time in the field up to two weeks
we could be out here so it's better than sleeping on the floor it gets you off
the ground and it gives us more storage space. As you can see we've all got our
duffel bags and that's got all our clothes in there which keeps them nice
and contained because zip them up keeps ground squirrels out of it and
everything else that like to get in there. We've got therm-a-rest pad
under there just to keep the cold out and good quality sleeping bags. This is
where we're living this is all our stuff in here, keep everything straight and we won't go wrong.
Water here the streams are extremely clean they've just gone
filtered themselves down off those mountains there, but you have to filtrate
it basically we've got a water pump here which we used to fill in the water but
also dump that in the stream and it filters all the water so it's nice and
clean. We've also got a filtration bag which holds quite a lot on there and as
the water's coming out it filters the water through the piping you just put
that straight into the drinking vessels and you don't need to boil it it's all
safe to drink and we've got it set up on my sticks, so it's all very good. As we go
through this is the cook tent in here, okay this is where we've got a jet boil
so I've got Sumo Jet boil there ,which we can use it boils the water very quick
just for coffees, this is the big main cooking stove there's also Jet boil very
compact, very light brilliant for bringing out into the field and it's so
economical on the gas so you don't have to bring much gas with you it cooks
really, really well. We've got heavy-duty plastic box here we keeping all the
coffee and a little bit of the dry food that we're going to use through the day
so we're not opening the dry bags, which I'll show you in a second and a few
chairs just to keep comfy and I'd say we don't sit in the tent where we sleep in
mine and Ian's packs are here ready to go in the morning when we go out in the morning
because we can't hunt today. Although the weather is absolutely glorious you have to wait
until the following day when you fly in. So, yeah this is the cook tent this is
where we're going to spend most of time telling, tall stories and having a giggle
basically. I just show you keeping the food keeping it cold in the
stream and basically that's about us. Here are the two dry bags, we've got three
freeze dried food in here, some roman, some coffee and things
that don't have to be kept cold mainly all the dry goods. In that one, which is
in the creek is some wet food that were taken, pre-cut sausage, bit of precooked
chicken things that has to be kept cool but it's a relief really to get
something that you haven't had got to boil water with it. We've dropped it in
there as you can see where the waters come straight off and snow-capped mountains
and it's running down here, so it's really cold and it'll keep it for days
in there. So, that's what it's setting the water for keeping it nice and cool so
basically that is pretty much camp set up. We've got a waiting game till
tomorrow now before we can start hunting and we're going to go and have a glass I
think, I better get me boots on and catch up with the boys.
With camp finally set up, we head out onto the ridge and take our first look
at the terrain we'll be hunting. The beautiful afternoon sunshine belies the
very hostile nature of this environment. Here we must keep our wits about us and
prepare for the worst that Mother Nature can throw at us. Here complacency kills.
It's a surreal experience to finally be here and our focus is now very much on
the challenge ahead. So, here we are coming towards the end of day one. It's
been pretty busy, but I think we've got everything done camp is now set up. We've
got all the water that we need, we've got their food in the right place, we've got
all the cots sorted it feels like we're at home. But, it's been a pretty
tough day. What I have to say it's great being back
you know this landscape here is just absolutely magnificent, it's been a bit
of an emotional roller coaster for the past 12 months getting this ready. Not
entirely sure if you've got all the gear, make sure you get your licenses and your
tags and your harvest tickets, making sure that Cole has got his deposits and
then gets paid, you know everybody needs to do their part to make this happen.
It's actually quite an emotional experience being here, we had an amazing
trip last year with Revelation Mountain Outfitters, we harvested seven of the
eight animals that we were going for, so it was a pretty busy trip now I'm
looking for two main animals this time a caribou and a moose and maybe have the
chance of a black bear. But, it may be a little bit more relaxed but it's still
no less daunting. You know this is big country out here this is pretty wild, so
you've got to pay at the right amount of respect you've got deep preparation
you've got to make sure you're in shape and you've got the right equipment. Great
being here look, around us magnificent scenery amazing weather you know
couldn't get any better. They're had 24 days solid rain and then when we come
out we get bright sunshine. Of course it's not going to stay this way, if you
don't like the weather in Alaska you know wait half an hour it will change.
But, it's been really kind to us today so get a bit more glassing this afternoon and of
course and when you fly into camp on the first day you can't hunt, but we can get
the measure of the place, we can look at the topography of trying to find the
right places to go and glass from and try get a good feel for the area. So,
pretty wide-open here, lots of big mountain slopes
we've got great vantage point from camp, so we're not actually need to do too
much walking to be able to see the animals crossing, but that's all for
tomorrow so we're gonna do now head back to camp
get the guys all fed up, get into bed and then hopefully have a full day at it tomorrow.
But, yeah it's been an amazing first day.