Well, by about the end of this week, I’ll be on the road headed for Alaska!

A couple weeks ago, a friend, Derek Habel, invited me to accompany him on his annual moose hunt. He hauls his horses up there every year about this time and spends most of a month out in the back country hunting moose and enjoying the outdoors of our northernmost, largest, and one of the least populated states in the union. As things turned out, this year he was going to have to go it alone.

It has long been a dream of mine to do a horse pack trip in Alaska. You know, you have that “bucket list” of things you’d like to do before you kick-the-bucket. Then there’s that wish list of dreams you know you’ll never get to do, but wish you could. My pack trip to Alaska on my own horse just moved from the wish list to the bucket list, and by the end of September, it will have it’s box checked off! For me, this is literally a dream-come-true!

Derek has done this trip each of the last four years (this being his fifth trip). He loads up six horses in his stock trailer and heads north. The travel restrictions aren’t too bad, considering.  You have to have proof of ownership, current negative Coggins test, and a health certificate, then you have to get some federal paperwork done. Don’t forget a passport for yourself. After that, the papers are presented at the Canadian Border, so you can pass through Canada on the Alcan Highway. No handguns are allowed, but long-guns (hunting rifles) are ok. The trip to where Derek hunts is about 1900 miles from home here in Utah. Tok, Alaska is the nearest US town, about two or so hours from our trailhead. Derek says the trip takes four days, after which we’ll pack in about 18 or so miles and set up camp.

This year, instead of hauling in a stock trailer, Derek bought a nice… make that a very nice, living-quarters horse trailer that will accommodate six horses. That will make it nice for both man and beast for the trip up and back. We’ll actually be in the backcountry for about two weeks or a little more. We expect to be home during the first few days of October.

Over the past month or more, I have been helping Derek “leg-up” his horses for the trip and doing a little horse training for him as well. That’s how I worked myself into an invitation. You see, I had the third leg of my Mexico-to-Canada trip planned for this month and Derek didn’t want to upset my plans. I was concerned about him heading up there to Alaska by himself, what with five horses, Grizzly bears, and trying to haul out a dead moose by himself, but he never put out the invite. So last week, when he started dropping hints about how tough it was going to be to do this trip alone and how he wished he had someone going with him, I finally decided he was not going to outright invite me and I was going to miss out if I waited for it. So, I finally asked what would he think if I rearranged my plans, so that I could accompany him on this trip. Well, Derek lit up. Funny how we both wanted the same thing, but kept beating around the bush. So, I’m going to get a wish-list thing done and Derek gets a willing body to carry luggage and wrangle horses. Tough job, but somebody has to do it!

I had a tough time deciding which of my horses to take with us. We’ll have five of Derek’s horses, and he has more available, but I really wanted to take my own horse on the trip. It’s a thing, you know. So, at length, I decided on J Golden. He’s not quite the trail horse Lizzy is, but he’s a better saddle horse. Besides, I wanted him to get the experience. He’s only been on one pack trip with me, but he’s turning out to be a pretty good trail horse.

We’ll we’re all set and ready, just waiting on some mechanical issues on the trailer to be resolved. Looks like we’ll be hitting the road this weekend.

The photos were supplied by Derek from his 2017 hunt with his son, DJ.

I can hardly wait!

P.S.

If you want to keep track of us, I’ve linked my Garmin mapshare page to the website. Just click on the Trail Map tab above.