I guess an apology is meaningless here, so I won’t bother. It’s been more than 3 years since my 2019 moose hunt trip to Alaska with Derek Habel and I’m just now getting around to finishing the story. This is my sixth post about it, I believe.

So, when I left off, I had just gone off with a saddle horse and four pack horses to return to the trailhead, 19.97 miles by our gps, to pick up about 440 lbs of horse feed to bring back to our camp. I documented that whole experience in a previous post (somehow I got things a little out of order as I was documenting the trip), so I won’t go back over that trail here. Suffice to say that it was a tough ride, particularly coming back in with four pack horses, fully loaded, alone, in grizzly country. However, having said that, a hot shower and a warm, comfortable bed at the trailer made it the trip almost worth the trouble!

We’ll pick things back up as I was arriving back at camp, Tuesday evening, after a very long and hard day on the trail. I arrived around 7pm and Derek had gotten back into camp just a little before I got there. He had a roaring fire going. We both pitched in to unload and care for the horses, and it wasn’t long before dinner was ready. It felt very good to sit and warm myself by the fire. My feet were soaked and cold from the river crossings coming in and I was utterly exhausted. If you haven’t read it, go back and read post #4, which I linked above, about my trip to bring feed for the horses back in. On the trip back in to the camp, I had three wrecks with my pack string, two of which were pretty serious. I was lucky that neither I nor any of the horses was seriously injured. It’s really too bad that I had nobody to get video footage of that ride. It was a tough one.

On Wednesday morning, that would be September 18, 2019, Derek and I packed up two saddle horses and all four pack horses and headed back into the back country. We traversed the low bogs, crossed Iverson canyon, made our way up Anaconda Creek, over to Cottonwood Creek, and finally down into Carden Creek, where we found a cozy little spot for a camp. All told, we were about 12 miles from our base camp. It was some pretty tough riding, but as we had come that way the previous week, we had idea of the easiest routes to take and kept the horses out of most of the toughest bogs and thickets.

The following day, we saddled Moose and Finn and headed out to hunt. We found a nice knoll above Carden Creek, from which to scope the area, but saw nothing we could hunt. We spotted a couple bull moose down farther in the valley, but they were too far off and moving too fast for us to make a try at them. They probably had been spooked by hunters brought in by the local outfitter.

On our way back toward camp, Derek spotted a cow moose and calf on the hillside opposite the one we were on, across Carden Creek. We stopped and watched for a few minutes, before we saw a second cow and decided that there was probably a bull somewhere nearby. After about a half hour or so of scoping the hillside, we finally saw him. He was a legal sized bull, but not a trophy.

I need to interject something here, just for background information. A couple of Derek’s friends, resident hunters of Alaska, had flown in and met us at our base camp the previous week and we hauled them up into the foothills east of camp to get them started on a Dall sheep hunt. As they were Alaska residents, they were hopeful that they might also get a chance at a Grizzly bear after their sheep hunt. Derek only hunts for trophy moose, so there was no guarantee that he would take one, but I, on the other hand, had no such aspirations. Derek’s friend purchased a bull moose tag for me in hopes that I might score a bull and create a “gut-pile” to attract a Grizzly to the area.  With that in mind, Derek set me up to take the bull we were looking at from that hillside on Carden Creek.

The bull was laying near the base of a tree, which is why it took us awhile to see him, facing north and broadside to us. After using Derek’s range finder, we determined that the range was 440 yards. I carried our bear protection rifle – a .457 Marlin lever action, so Derek gave me his custom 300 Ultra Mag with an excellent range-finding scope. He coached me through the use of the scope to get the proper rise and I got myself into a comfortable seated position.  I held a long breath, slowly exhaled, and squeezed her off. I saw the bull toss his head and thought I had hit him, but he didn’t do anything else, so I took a second shot, which I was pretty sure hit the mark. He then stood up. I took a third shot, which I thought scored as well, but he then slowly turned away from us and started to slip behind some brush. I took a fourth shot, which I was pretty sure missed completely. He slipped behind the brush and out of our sight. I was pretty sure my second shot was a solid hit, so I mounted up on Moose and started to find my way down the mountainside, across Carden Creek, and up the opposite mountainside. Derek remained at the site from which I shot, to spot for me and make sure I found the moose.

It took me close to half an hour to reach the bull, but I found him not 20 feet from where I first saw him laying near the base of the tree. He was dead as a hammer. As it turned out, my first shot hit him in one of his antlers. After he stood up, my next two shots were both in the neck and were both kill shots. As I had thought, the fourth shot missed completely.

Derek and I got to work cutting up the moose. We quartered him and pulled the backstraps and left the meat laying on some moss to cool, while we went back to our satellite camp and returned with our pack horses. By the time we got the meat and antlers packed on the horses and made our way back to camp, we were a couple of tired puppies.

The sky was lowering that night, so we prepared our camp for rain. It came in the early hours of the morning, which made getting up and getting packed up for our move back to base camp a cold, wet, chore, but we were on the trail by about 7:30am.The trip back to base camp was a rough one. Neither Derek nor I had slept well and we were exhausted. Our horse feed had run out the day before (what we brought out with us from base camp) so the horses were hungry and irritable, as well. Missy had a sore back, so she was problematic for us and she kept getting us all tangled up in the pack string. She became such a problem to us and all the horses that we considered more than once just shooting her and having it done with! However, our better selves prevailed and eventually we got things sorted out to minimize our horse problems and made our way back toward base camp….in the rain.

We were supposed to be meeting Dave and Zack, our intrepid Dall sheep hunters, somewhere along the path back, but we had no communication from them and gave up trying to contact them by satellite and cell phone (it was amazing that we had cellular coverage in some areas). When we arrived back at base camp that afternoon, it was like coming home…almost.

My horse, Apollo, as I mentioned in previous posts, had developed a limp on his front right foot on the trip in from the trailhead. I had him shod by a farrier I had not used before a couple days before we left Spanish Fork and I think the farrier quicked him. Apollo lost the shoe on that hoof before we had been out three days, but I was lucky enough to have been able to find the shoe and retrieve it. I re-set the shoe and hoped that would relieve the pain in his hoof. I also gave him some rest the first week, but as time went on we had to have him. During our three-day hunting expedition to the Carden Creek area, Apollo again lost that same shoe. I didn’t bring our farrier kit with us, so he had to go barefoot on that hoof. He was fine in the tundra, but while crossing the rocky creek beds, he was very sore. I took it as easy on him as I could. He was game and kept on working. Once we got back to base camp I again re-set that shoe.

During the whole trip, I had to re-set seven horse shoes. I went through all the spares we brought and finally ended up having to make a rear shoe out of a used front shoe to get us out on the last day. It held, though. We haven’t used that farrier since.

All the horses, at this stage of the hunt, were showing wear. Apollo and Missy were dropping weight quickly and were looking pretty thin. The rest of the horses had rub sores in one place or another from the pack saddles. I was double-padding Missy, to ease her sore back. Having said that, all-in-all, we and the horses were in pretty good shape for the work we were doing.  We had plenty of feed for the horses at base camp, so they were well fed when we were there. The dogs, Ruger and Lucky, were ok, although Lucky was still suffering badly from the porcupine quills in his mouth (I talked about that encounter in a previous post). We continued to pull one or two now and again, whenever we saw the opportunity, but Lucky was not wanting anything to do with us by that time.

The following day, Saturday,  September 21, Derek and I saddled up and packed up the horses and headed back out toward Carden Creek and farther south. We blazed a trail through the tundra and thickets, cutting out a bunch of scrub trees and clearing a trail for ourselves, made our way past Cottonwood Creek and made our way over to our previous satellite camp. We set up camp for the night there and rested that evening.

On Sunday, we headed over the hills south of Carden Creek, up on to a rise, then down into a valley. As we continued southward, we sighted a decent bull on a hillside a half-mile or so away. We headed that direction. When we got close enough, Derek started a stalk, while I took the horses around to an area where I thought we could approach without being seen. While I was bushwhacking, Derek was able to stalk to within about 200 yards and scored a very nice bull with a one-shot kill.

As I made my way toward Derek’s kill, the remaining moose, several cows and another nice bull, passed right by me and the horses. In trying to find a way to reach Derek’s bull, I ended up in a gully about 100 yards or so below where I needed to be. I could see no easy way to get there, so I pointed Ginger up an extremely steep, brush covered, hillside, making our way in short switch-backs, up the side hill. Finn, on the other hand, wouldn’t follow us. I ended up dismounting and just letting Ginger head on up the hill on her own (Derek was waiting at the top of the ascent), while I went back for Finn. I finally succeeded in coaxing Finn up the hill, now that Ginger was at the top, and we both reached the top of the hill out of breath, but in good shape.

We again quartered the bull and caped this one (it was a very nice 64″ bull), but having no pack horses, we laid out the quarters and backstraps on the moss to cool, and headed back to camp. We picked up the other horses at our satellite camp and continued on toward base camp. We had made contact with Dave and Zack and had made arrangements to pick them up in Anaconda Gulch around 2pm, but we didn’t reach them until about 6-7pm. It was long after dark after a very long day when we reached base camp that night.

Dave and Zack had spent 12 days in the high peaks hunting Dall sheep. They had scored a nice buck with full curls, but had no further luck. They had eventually run out of food and had been living on fresh mutton without salt for a couple days! They were happy to see us.

We had a fun evening that night, exchanging hunt stories with Dave and Zack. We stayed up past 2am, before running out of steam and heading for bed.

On Monday morning, two planes came in and landed in the river bed, not far from our base camp, to pick up Dave and Zack. Derek and I again packed up the horses and headed back over to our Carden Creek camp. We had previously cleared a lot of the trail, which made the going easier, but by the time we arrived at camp that evening, we were bushed. We had a quick meal and went to bed.

The next day we packed up early and, with all the horses in tow, headed over the hills to retrieve Derek’s bull. We had it loaded and underway by around noon. We arrived back at our base camp in the early evening, before dark, after having made 23 miles on the day.

The following morning we arose early. I went right to work replacing a hind shoe on Apollo, which he had lost the day before. I was out of shoes and almost out of nails, having replaced six other shoes during the trip. I took the front shoe Apollo had lost days before and used a rock as an anvil and another rock as a hammer, and was able to rough it into shape as a rear shoe. I tacked it on and while it was ugly, it held and he made it out with all four shoes in place.

We then packed up the camp, loaded up Derek’s bull, and headed back toward our trailhead and the trailer in Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory, Canada. We left my moose quarters and backstraps hanging on our meat pole. The trip out was sort of a blur. We were exhausted from our exertions of the past couple of weeks, as were the horses, but they and we knew we were headed back toward the trailer and the end of the trail. The horses moved out without any urging from us.

We had gone just a couple of miles, when we came upon a young bull and a cow crossing the river. The cow was very concerned about us and stood her ground, watching the dogs and us. She showed some aggressiveness, so we kept our distance. An angry cow moose is nothing to mess with. The bull, on the other hand, not quite legal size for hunting yet, was entirely focused on the cow. I’m not even sure he noticed us at all. The cow must have  been in season, because he was completely focused on her. We waited several minutes, got a little video footage, then they moved off across the river and into the woods.

We made it to the trailer in very good time, arriving in the late afternoon around 4pm. We clocked 19.97 miles in 5 hours 27 minutes, fully loaded.

It was very nice to be back at the trailer that night. Derek’s living-quarters trailer is almost like a hotel room and a hot shower was excellent!

But, the trip was not over for me. I still had to go back for my moose!

The next morning, Derek arose at 6am and packed up Ginger and Shadow for me and saddled Moose with my gear. He let me sleep in until 7, waking me up for breakfast. I was in the saddle and headed back to the base camp by 7:37am.

The morning was wet and it was snowing lightly, and it was cold and breezy.  I had dressed for it, though, so I was comfortably warm, at least until water from the river crossings started getting through to my feet.  Still, I had long since gotten over the “heeby-geebies” of being alone with horses in Grizzly country, so I enjoyed the ride in. The river was higher than the previous year and many of the short-cuts and byways I had come to know from my previous trips in and out had changed, but I was getting to know the way fairly well by this time. There was little guesswork this trip and I was able to avoid the worst of the traps and log jams I encountered on the previous ride in. The horses moved along well and gave me no trouble, the weather cleared by mid-morning, and I enjoyed watching the mountains change as I drew nearer to them.

I arrived at base camp, now empty but for my moose and a few odds and ends of gear, just before 1pm. We made the 20 miles in 4 hours and 13 minutes. Happily, I found the meat on the meat pole had not been disturbed. I took about an hour to rest, eat lunch, and let the horses get what little grass was left in the area.

Then came the hard part. A quarter of moose can weigh upwards of 200 pounds, and I had the task of loading two pack horses with 4 quarters and some other large packs of meat, and some remaining camp gear, by myself. It helped that the horses were compliant and stood in place while I struggled to get each pannier up and hooked over the pack saddle trees. By the time I had both pack horses loaded, I was in a full sweat and exhausted!

Derek had given me his satellite phone for the trip, so I took a minute to call and let him know I had made it in safely and was heading back out. It was 2:02pm when I climbed back in the saddle and headed out. The trip out went smoothly. No problems from the horses.  I was mounted on Ginger and she led the way at a wonderful pace. If there was five feet of level ground in front of her she stepped up into a foxtrot! Anything else was at a fast walk. As the miles flew past, I began to run out of energy. I mean, this was a tough day on a 61 year old saddle bum! By the time we rolled into camp I was just about at the end of my rope.

We arrived at 5:55pm, making my trip out, fully loaded, 3 hours and 53 minutes. Overall, we traveled 40 miles (39.94 to be exact), took an hour’s break in the middle, in 8 hours and 20 minutes…or thereabouts.

We arrived in the evening at 5:55pm, just before dark. Derek was there to welcome us in and simply waved me to the trailer while he unpacked, cared for, and fed the horses. I later calculated my travel time: Trip in – 4:13, trip out – 3:53, lunch break and packing – 1:12, total trip 9 hours 18 minutes for 40 miles.

That evening, Derek treated me to a nice meal at Buckshot Betty’s restaurant. They have hot showers and changing rooms in the back as well, so we took advantage of that too.

The next morning we were met by a Yukon Territory Conservation Officer, who nicely informed us they were waiting for us to show up at the Canadian Border Patrol Station to obtain proper permits to transport our moose meat through Canada. We stopped first at Buckshot Betty’s for a nice breakfast, then headed over. We were in full compliance with all regulations and all went well. Then we drove the 18 miles to the US Border Patrol Station to declare out kills and get the proper inspections to depart the US and enter Canada with the meat. We then stopped again at the Canadian authorities’ office, where they were already expecting us and moved us through quickly and with no trouble. We were on the road headed home by just after noon.

It was a long, but relaxed 4-day drive home. Both Derek and me, as well as our six horses, were due for a nice long rest.

I’m pretty proud of what those horses and I did on that last ride. We made a 40-mile ride through the Yukon Territory back country, without a trail, following a river with dozens of crossings, with a pack string loaded with meat and gear, with an hour break in the middle, in nine hours and 18 minutes!

That’s what a string of Missouri Fox Trotters can do for you!  Not too shabby for an old man either!

TH