Not too long ago, I spent some time with my parents at their home in Arizona. While I was there, Dad and I had a chance to sit and reminisce about some of our rides, pack trips, and other experiences together. I got him talking about his boyhood in southern Utah and he told me about his first three horses. As soon as I got back to my room that night, I spent a few minutes writing down in my journal what he told me. I thought it might be enjoyable reading for my followers.

Dad was born and raised in Panguitch, Utah, which is the setting for the stories I am about to relate. This is taken directly from my journal entry for December 2, 2021:

This evening Dad and I sat up late talking about family history and some of his youth experiences. He told me about three horses he had as a young boy: Nick, Brownie, and Flicka. Dad has always loved horses. So have I.

When Dad was about 6 years old, or thereabouts, he and his buddy, Doug Davis, were playing in the hay loft of his Aunt Pearl’s barn (Panguitch, UT, circa 1940). They noticed an old gray horse had walked into the yard and was snatching hay from the cracks between the siding boards of the barn.  He and Doug decided to catch the horse, so they went down to give it a try, thinking the horse would run away. The old horse just wanted to be fed, so they fed it. Eventually, Dad got a rope around the horse’s neck and tied it to a post. He ran across the road, to his grandpa’s house (Norm Sargent), where Dad and his family were living at the time. He told Gramp he had caught a horse and asked if he could keep it.

Gramp said, “Well, let’s go see it,” so the two of them returned to the barn yard where the horse was tied. Gramp took a long look at the horse, checking its teeth, hooves, and walking all around it. Then he told Dad, “Yes, you can keep him. I used to own this horse and he’s come home.  His name is Nick.”

Dad kept Nick at Gramp and Granny’s place. He has an old photo somewhere (I’ve asked him to try to find it) of him and five other kids sitting on Nick’s back. Dad and his friends often took turns riding Nick around their block. Once, Dad and a friend were riding Nick down Main Street in Panguitch, when  an older boy, who was always somewhat of a bully, stepped out of his doorway and shot a rifle at them. At the time, Dad thought it was a B-B gun, but in retrospect, he now believes it was a .22 rifle, probably loaded with .22 short ammunition, which was commonly used for killing rats. Nick jumped and tried to run away with them, but Dad was able to get him back under control and got home safely. Dad doesn’t remember seeing a wound on the horse, but he walked with a limp on a hind leg ever after.

After that incident, with Nick going lame, Gramp told Dad he had better just let the horse go and return to whoever owned it. So, that’s what they did. Years later, Dad remembers, he saw old Nick working on a local farm, pulling logs and brush for a man. He was still limping on that hind leg.

Dad’s second horse was Brownie.

One day Gramp was in another town working, when a rancher drove his cattle into town to market. He was riding a mare with a colt. He didn’t want to keep the colt, so he asked Gramp if he wanted it. Gramp, thinking about Dad, accepted the colt. He loaded it into the back seat of his 1937 Dodge and drove home to Panguitch.  When he arrived, Gramp pulled Dad aside and told him, “Come see what I have for you!”

Dad raised Brownie by himself, with a little help from Gramps. He eventually broke her to ride – again, by himself at about seven or eight years of age. Being a mustang, Brownie was always ornery and hard to handle (of course, that’s from the perspective of a seven or eight year old boy), but Dad loved her.

One winter (winters in Panguitch are long and cold) his dad (my grandfather, Torild Henrie), approached Dad and explained that they just couldn’t afford to feed Brownie through the winter. She was sold to a local rancher.

During June the following year, his dad was killed in a construction accident. Dad had just turned 9 years old at the time.

Not too long after, the rancher to whom Brownie had been sold, approached Gramps and said, “Remember that mare you sold me? Well, she had a foal.”  He offered the foal to Gramp, which he accepted on Dad’s behalf.

Dad went out to the fellow’s ranch, on foot I suppose, where he easily caught Brownie, who knew Dad well. He mounted Brownie and rode her back to Gramp and Granny’s place, with the young foal following. When he got there, he rode into the barn, then locked the foal inside.  He then returned Brownie to her owner.

The foal was around six months old, so easily weaned.  Dad said he had a tough time getting her to become friendly with him, but eventually succeeded. The 1943 movie “My Friend Flicka” had recently been released, so that is where this little filly got her name.

Dad, now at about nine or ten years old, broke and trained Flicka himself. Not knowing any better, however, he started her very young, riding her probably by the time she was a yearling. Dad believes that his riding her so early, even though he was such a small boy, may have stunted her growth a little. He remembers that she was a small horse and that her front legs seemed a bit short proportionate to her hind legs. He remembers that while she was a good horse, she was never particularly athletic.

Eventually, Flicka was sold to a local rancher, who used her to help him make the rounds on his irrigation ditches.

Dad said he had horses all through his youth and even dated on horses during his high school years.  Nick, Brownie, and Flicka were his first three and they kindled in him a life-long love for horses, which I am pleased to report he passed on to me in full force.

Thanks, Dad.

For Dan and Jackie

TH

It’s been awhile since my last post about my 2019 Alaska moose hunt. Time to sit down and get another one done.

As it turns out, in reviewing my journal entries of the hunt, I discovered that my memory was a bit rusty when I made the last post. I completely passed right over nearly a whole week! So, this post will cover that missed time and get the chronology straightened out.

So, when we left off, Derek and I had arrived at camp, got ourselves and horses squared away, our other hunting buddies had flown in and we had hauled them up into the foothills to start their Dall sheep hunt. That’s where I got things mixed up. That was Wednesday, September 11, 2019.

You will recall that Apollo had a bruised hoof and was pretty sore, so I let him rest a few days.

On Thursday, Derek and I took a very long and tough ride across the foothills and valley to the west of camp, looking for new routes to take us to farther ranges and hunting areas. The area Derek has hunted for several years didn’t show any promise for decent moose bulls last year (2018), due to the presence of a pack of more than 24 timber wolves.

I saddled up Moose for this ride. She is a Missouri Fox Trotter mare, about 15-2 hands tall, with a strong build. She is about 9 years old. Moose plows through the tundra like a bulldozer. She can carry a 300 pound pack all day and drag the other pack horses along behind. If she has one shortcoming at all, it is that as a pack horse she doesn’t like to track behind the lead horse.

She has had her heels clipped a time or two by the horse behind, which is quite painful, so she likes to walk to the side of the string and ends up trying to get alongside of the lead saddle horse.  She sometimes gets on the wrong side of trees and causes problems. On our trip in to the hunt camp, Moose was the cause of our most serious wreck, because she doesn’t like to stay in line. Still, as a saddle horse on any kind of trail, she is hard to beat, utterly fearless and strong. This was her third trip to Alaska and she knew the drill.

Derek was riding Finn again, his tall, lanky, strong, Tennessee Walker. This was his second trip to Alaska and he was a different horse this time. Last year Finn didn’t have the strength necessary to carry Derek through the Alaskan terrain. He tired quickly, stumbled a lot and didn’t hold his weight well. This year it was a different story. Finn was up to the task and proved himself a very good horse for this difficult job. He was amazing.

We decided to find a reliable way to cross a large valley to the west of our hunt camp, that would give us a faster route to Cottonwood Creek and beyond. The way across the flat in the bottom was tough on the horses. The stunted Alberta pines grow so close together in places a horse can barely fit between them, much less a horse with a pack. Then there are the marshes and tundra that the horses had to struggle through. In the long run, we were able to find and mark a pretty good route. We will still need to clear paths through a couple Alder thickets in the future, but it’s a much quicker travel route and easier on the horses than making our way across the foothills.

After we reached Cottonwood Creek, which is mostly a dry gravel and shale wash, we headed south toward the area we wanted to take a look at. About a mile down the wash, we came upon the camp of the local outfitter. They use the wash as a runway to fly their hunters in by bush plane. We happened upon one of their guides and a pilot there. They were none too happy with us and leveled some veiled threats at us for invading their hunt area. We ignored those and just went about our business. It was sufficient for Derek that they knew we could reach their camp with little effort, should anything untoward happen at our camp.

By the time we started back toward home camp, it was getting on toward evening. We returned by way of the foothills, which we both knew very well.  Moose and Finn knew they were heading back toward camp, so they put it into high gear and we made our way over the hills at a pretty quick clip in the gait these horses are known for.  We found ourselves busting down the tundra covered hills as fast as 10 miles per hour!

We arrived back at camp just after full dark. We were lucky the horses knew the way, because we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces! We logged 19 miles that day. By the time we arrived back at camp,   both our horses and ourselves were absolutely tuckered-out.

Made for a sound night’s sleep.

The only game we saw through all our travels that day were several Dall sheep way up in the peaks and a lone boar Black bear. That was quite disappointing, even though we didn’t consider it a hunting day.  I commented in my journal that the way the Dall sheep can hang on sheer cliff faces amazes me. That is really something to see. I wished our two buddies hunting them lots of luck!

The next two days were rainy, so we stayed in camp and lazed around and relaxed. It was a good rest period for the horses as well. We had  brought some good old Louis L’Amour western novels and we went through a couple each. Late in the day on Saturday we heard wolves howling on both sides of camp, but some distance away. We never saw any, though.

The weather was still fairly warm, so the bugs were horrible. The horses, despite our keeping fly wipe and spray on them, were covered with welts from gnat and mosquito bites. We hoped and prayed for frost to kill off the insects. That came only a few days later, to the great relief of all. Meanwhile, we kept a smoking fire going, which helped greatly.

After our experience a few days earlier, in which four of our horses headed back toward the trailhead on their own, we kept a sharp eye on the horses as we allowed them to graze. We found it was pretty safe to allow two at a time out of the corral. We rotated them every several hours, so that all 6 had at least two hours of grazing time. We also supplemented their grazing with alfalfa pellets we hauled in with us, but, being restricted by the weight we could haul in on the horses, we realized the bagged feed wasn’t going to last long. The plan was for me head out with three pack horses and bring several hundred pounds of feed back in from the trailer. That took place a few days later and is documented in the previous post.

On Sunday, we took another ride over west, through the valley and the flats again. We decided to make this a hunt day as well as an exploration day, so we took two pack horses along, with gear to sustain us in case we got a moose and had to make camp for the night.  This time we crossed through the flats in the valley and made a loop over to Anaconda Creek, named for its winding path, then farther west to Cottonwood Creek, then on over another ridge to Carden Creek. The travel was tough, but the horses handled it in stride.

On this day I rode Ginger, a Missouri Fox Trotter mare about 15.2 hands, almost a duplicate of Moose. She had made this same hunt trip at least four times before. She is an amazing horse, one I would trust with my life under any circumstances. Ginger has a Fox Trot that is amazing. She plows through anything without hesitation, never stumbles, and hops up into her fox trot at every possible place in the trail...if there is a trail at all! She really doesn’t need one.

After crossing Anaconda Creek and climbing to the crest of a ridge between Anaconda and Cottonwood Creek, we stopped for lunch and spent some time scoping the valley below. We spotted two bull moose that were legal size (50 inch spread minimum or four tines on one brow), but they were too far away and moving too fast to even consider trying for them.

We made our way farther west, crossing Cottonwood to Carden Creek, which was the farthest west Derek had been on his previous hunts. We saw no further moose the rest of the day.

By the time we turned back toward camp, once again taking the high route through the foothills because we were familiar with the route, the daylight was fading. While the evening sunshine on the mountain peaks was beautiful, we didn’t take much time to look. We were pushing hard to make it back to camp. We were concerned about finding the trail in the dark.

We were still about three-and-a-half miles from camp when we heard a dog yelp. We looked around and couldn’t find Lucky and Ruger anywhere! We stopped and called, searching in the fading light, but couldn’t find them. Then, a few minutes later, both dogs slowly made their way up to the horses.  What we saw was one of the worst sights I have ever seen on any of my pack trips or hunts.

The dogs had apparently come upon a porcupine and had torn into it. Ruger, the pup, was the luckier of the two. He had a dozen or so quills stuck in the side of his face. Lucky, on the other hand (despite his name) had literally hundreds of quills in his face, inside his mouth, and even on his sides.  There were quills sticking through his ears and through his tongue! He had so many stuck inside his mouth that he could not close it! My heart sank.

Derek and I parked the horses, tied them to a couple stunted pines, and went to work on the dogs with our multi-tools. I went to Ruger first, while Derek started on Lucky. Ruger sat there submissively, while I plucked the few quills out of the side of his face. He winced a bit and gave a muffled cry a time or two, but within a couple minutes I had removed all the quills I could find and he was feeling much better.

Then I turned to help Derek with poor Lucky. He was in such pain that it was difficult to hold him down. We turned him on his back and one of us would sit on him and hold his face still while the other pulled quills. At first Lucky was tough and just whimpered a little, but after the first fifty or so quills were pulled, he started snapping at us and yelping out loud. It must have been terrible for him, yet he never bit down on us, despite getting our hands in his mouth several times.

While all this was going on, Derek and I kept in the back of our minds the thought that we were out in the middle of nowhere, in Grizzly bear country, with wolves all around, in the dark, with a yelping dog! Luckily, we were not disturbed!

Eventually Lucky just couldn’t take any more, so we let him alone. At least he could close his mouth now. We got back in the saddle and made the last few miles to camp with two wounded dogs and tired horses, through bear and wolf country, in the dark. The horses, always reliable, knew the way and took us home at a good Fox Trot. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Ginger, for bringing us safely to camp that night, hours after dark. She comes into play again, pulling my weight through a tough day later in the trip as well.

We made 23 very tough miles that day. We were pretty happy to find our camp undisturbed, with the other horses calling to us and ready for some feed.

Another good night’s sleep.

The next day I left with three pack horses to make the 20 miles back to the trailhead to bring horse feed back to camp.

P.S.

Just so nobody worries too much, both Ruger and Lucky survived the trip. Lucky’s face swelled and we were pulling quills out of him for days. After we arrived back home at Spanish Fork, Utah, Derek took him in to see the vet, who sedated Lucky and pulled another 20 or so quills out of his mouth and face. He is fully recovered now, a much wiser pup than before.

TH

This is my third post about my 2019 Alaska Moose Hunt.

So, at the end of the last post, Derek and I had made the horse pack trip in to our hunt camp. I said in my last post that we made it to camp during early afternoon on the second day, but as I was reviewing my journal for this post, I saw that we actually arrived at camp about 4:00pm the second afternoon. It was a tough 20 miles, involving deep river crossings, overloaded horses, pack problems, a lame horse, and quicksand, and a night’s camp on the trail. I wrote in my journal that the trip in was “an ordeal.”

Also, I neglected to mention a wreck we had on the way in that could have been a lot worse than it ended up being.  It was significant enough that I thought I’d talk about it in this post.

It was the second day and we were still making progress toward our hunt camp. We had run up against a logjam and were trying to make our way through a thicket to clear the jam. We found a way out to a clear area on the shore of the river, but it entailed crossing several downed logs and a large berm of sand that had washed up against them, creating a steep bank. Derek made it through on Finn, so I came behind him on Apollo, leading the four pack horses. Apollo and the first pack horse, Ginger, carefully walked through the jam, crossing the logs and descending the bank without trouble. The second pack horse, Moose, however, decided to jump across the logjam, rather than walking through it. When she jumped, she pulled Shadow into the logjam without giving him a chance to see where he was going, so he fell across the logs and went down. The trailer, Missy, who was just making the turn toward the logjam, saw the wreck and immediately pulled back and started fighting her lead rope.

We ended up with two pack horses, Ginger and Moose, pulling against Shadow’s lead, with Shadow down on the ground on his side with his head downhill, stretched out, and Missy pulling against him backward. Missy had fought until she was in a sitting position with her pack saddle completely off her rump and on the ground, with cinches and rigging still hooked up and tight around her hips.  After a few intense seconds, the horses stopped fighting and just held their positions with all the lead ropes taught and hard.

Derek and I immediately dismounted and tied our horses and started working on freeing the horses. The wet lead ropes had tightened until the knots were impossible to untie. We ended up having to cut some of the pigtails to free the lead ropes. Once the horses were free, we tied Ginger and Moose to brush and went back to work on Shadow and Missy. We were relieved to see that Shadow was uninjured, despite his precarious situation. We were able to unload him, remove his pack, and get him back on his feet without too much trouble.

Missy was another problem. The way she was sitting, it was a simple matter to get her packs off, since they were already sitting on the ground, but getting the pack saddle off of her was another matter. After several minutes of work, I was able to access the cinch rings and loosen the latigoes, allowing the pack saddle to fall away. I was then able to untangle the mass of rigging from around her legs and clear it all away. Luckily, she, too, was uninjured.

After getting Missy through the logjam and down onto the shore of the river, we were able to get all the horses repacked and back underway.  As we were both quite busy and the adrenaline was high, sadly, neither of us thought to get photos of this wreck.

After another couple of hours with no further serious wrecks, we made it to our hunt camp.

Our hunt camp was in about the same condition in which we left it when we departed last year.  The meat pole, unused last year, was still standing. Much of our scaffolding for the tarp roof was still there, but we had to cut a couple new poles. Our makeshift corral was still standing, so we let the horses into it, fed them, and went to work on the camp.  Our first task, after unloading and caring for the horses, was to set up the camp kitchen and the tent. By that time, it was getting dark and we were tired. After a good dinner around a campfire, we hit the sacks for a good night’s sleep.

The weather for the trip in was quite pleasant, clear and probably in the mid sixties. The problem with the pleasant weather, however, was the bugs!  The “noseeums” and mosquitoes were so thick that one breath with the mouth open would get you half-a-dozen bugs for dinner! The flies nearly drove the horses nuts! We had plenty of fly spray concentrate, but it seemed to have little effect. A couple of the horses reacted to the fly bites and had welts all over them. The best deterrent to the flies and mosquitoes seemed to be the smoke from our fire. By about the end of the first week we had a couple nights of low temperatures, which greatly reduced the bug problem. Later on we had a couple of hard freezes, after which the flies and mosquitoes were almost non-existent and both we and the horses were much happier.

The day after we arrived at camp, we went to work improving our camp. We had packed in some landscaping spikes, which we used to nail up the rails to our makeshift corral, making it much more secure. We gathered driftwood for the campfire and got things situated in camp.

I took the opportunity to take a look at Apollo’s front right hoof, to see why he was lame. I picked up my hoof pick and started toward Apollo. He decided he didn’t want to be caught, after the previous day’s hard ride, so he started walking away from me. Derek brought two dogs with us, one of which likes to nip the horses’ heels when they are causing problems. That one was following close behind me as I walked toward Apollo. As I caught up with Apollo, and was near his rump, he moved his rump toward me. I reached out my left hand to push his rump away . He apparently felt that hoof pick and thought the dog had nipped him. Apollo immediately kicked out with both hind legs, catching me just above the knees on both legs! I hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, moaning and groaning.

Once I was sure nothing was broken, I looked around at Apollo. He had walked off a step or two and was looking at me with this contrite and apologetic expression on his face (yes, horses have expressions) that said, “Sorry boss, I thought you were the dog.”

Derek was on the satellite phone with his wife during all this. He looked around and saw me on the ground groaning and figured that since I was groaning, I was still alive and would survive, so he just continued the conversation with his wife and didn’t even come check on me. Some friend!

That night both Derek and I slept so well that neither of us wished to get out of bed in the morning. We finally got ourselves up around 10am. We had a couple more hunting buddies that were to join us in camp. They were to be dropped off by bush plane, so we spent a couple hours preparing a landing strip near our camp. While doing so, we had let several of the horses out to graze on our little island. About the time our friends were to arrive, I went to saddle up a couple horses to bring them to camp. That’s when we noticed our horses weren’t with us anymore, so I saddled up Ginger and went looking for them.

Sure enough, Moose, Shadow, Apollo, and Finn, had all decided to head back to the trail head, 20 miles away. I caught up with them about a mile and a half from camp, headed north at a pretty good clip. They didn’t run from me when I approached on Ginger, so I caught up Moose and turned back for camp, thinking the rest would follow us, but they didn’t. So, I tied Moose and went after them again and caught Finn. Shadow and Apollo just kept on going. I stopped and tied Moose and Finn to some deadfalls and went after the other two. I finally caught up with Shadow and caught his lead rope, but it was a chase. Leading Shadow, now, Apollo decided to follow. I went back to where I had tied Moose and Finn and tied each lead rope to another’s halter, and in that way was able to lead them all back to camp. In all, that was a 3.7 mile jaunt for me. After that, we made sure never to allow more than two horses free to graze at a time. The rest remained safely secured in the corral.

By the time I got back to camp, our buddies had arrived. These are two friends, father and son (the son is an Alaska resident), who came to hunt Dall sheep and grizzly bear, as well as moose. Derek and I were to support them with the horses, hauling them up to the foot of the mountains and packing their kills back to camp. After arriving back at camp, I saddled Apollo to help them get their packs from their drop site to camp. En route, Apollo lost his front right shoe in the river. Luckily, we saw it and were able to recover the shoe.

Back at camp, and everybody settled in, I took a look at Apollo’s hoof and discovered the reason for his lameness. I could see that the farrier had trimmed him too closely and that one of the nails had caused bruising on the outer side of the sole from being placed too far into the white line. I reset the shoe, hoping it would help, but the damage was done. Apollo remained sore on that hoof for about the next 10 days. Eventually he lost that shoe again I replaced it with a new shoe. After that he walked without a limp and was useful again as a saddle horse.

The following day Derek and I put the extra saddles on two of the pack horses, and hauled our buddies up into the foothills east of our camp and dropped them off. We did some bushwhacking to get them to where they could start their hunt. It was pretty tough going with no trail, other than a couple game trails. Derek and I made our way back to camp and again spent a relaxing evening around the campfire.

The following day, Derek and I made a 19-mile tour around the area he has hunted for the past six years. Derek rode Finn and I rode Moose. We passed through some beautiful and difficult terrain, but the horses performed well. We came across the hunt camp where a local outfitter drops his clients. They land their planes on a makeshift landing strip in the riverbed of Cottonwood Creek. The pilot and one of the guides was there when we passed. They came out to talk with us. They were none too happy that we were hunting in “their” area and they were somewhat rude to us, bordering on threatening. Derek and I weren’t much intimidated, though, and we ended up letting them know we were there to stay, that we could easily reach their camp with our horses, and that they could not prevent us from hunting anywhere we wanted to hunt within the limits of our legal hunt area.

We continued on and made our way around our loop, having traversed some areas where we had previously not ventured to take the horses. On the return trip, we traveled through areas Moose was familiar with, so she set a blistering pace, occasionally hitting around 10 miles per hour in her awesome fox trot through tundra sometimes knee deep! We arrived back at camp after dark. Both we and the horses were tuckered out. It was quite a day.

Last year we were unable to pack in sufficient feed for the horses for the time we planned to stay on the hunt, so, the plan this year was for me to take the entire pack string and head back to the trailhead, where we had our feed stacked in the back of the pickup. I would pack up about 700 pounds of feed (alfalfa cubes) and bring it back. I took off early the next day to do just that. My next post will document that 40-mile trip and a few more days of our hunt.

So stay tuned!

I am about to head for Alaska again next week. Decided I had better finish my posts about the last trip – it’s been almost a year! So here’s part three from last year’s Alaska Moose Hunt Trip. The other two posts can be found here and here.

As we left the last episode, Part Two, Derek Habel and I were in camp on Beaver Creek in southeastern Alaska.

We had been in camp about a week, when one evening, two of the horses decided they had had enough of the Alaskan adventure, and they headed back down the trail to the trailer…18.7 miles by my GPS. That was on Sunday, September 23, 2018.

Our first hint that the two horses were gone, was that my gelding, J Golden, had been grazing with them, but returned to camp alone that evening. We had heard him calling a couple of times in the distance, which must have been when they crossed the river and headed out. J just let the other horses go and turned around and came back to camp. I tracked him back and found the place on the other side of our island where  the two horses had crossed the river and headed north on Beaver Creek.

One of the horses, a mare named Ginger, had been on four previous hunts to that same camp, so she knew the route back to the trailhead very well. The other horse, Shadow, was on his first trip, but he willingly followed Ginger on her way. Why J Golden, who was also on his first trip to Alaska, turned around, left the other two, and returned to camp, I cannot guess, but I’m sure glad he did. In fact, he saved us two more times that way, when other horses ventured off the island to find other pastures.  A priceless trait for a backcountry trail horse!

The following morning it was decided that I would take J and head out after the two missing horses, while Derek continued his hunt; the moose rut had started and our hunting days were numbered before we had to head home. If he were successful, we would need those two horses to pack out the meat and rack. After a good breakfast, I saddled J Golden and said so-long to Derek. He kept Lucky, the trusty bear dog, with him, since he would be going through the thick forests, while I would have to depend on my horse’s senses and a .457 Marlin Lever-action saddle gun for my own protection. I have to admit I was a bit anxious, having spent very little time in grizzly country in my life.  So, trusting to J’s senses and divine protection, I headed out.

I hadn’t gone very far, when I began to see bear tracks superimposed on the tracks of the two horses in the sand along the river shores. It seemed that I found those tracks at nearly every crossing for nearly eight miles. I’m pretty sure most of the tracks were those of a large black bear, although there might have been tracks of a grizzly among them as well, as we saw some grizzly bear tracks near the trailhead as we departed the week before. I tried to speed up my chase, although cautiously, hoping to come upon the horses before they became bear food. I have to admit that I wondered about my decision-making processes, as I hurried to catch up with horses that were being followed by a bear!

I pushed J along pretty quickly, averaging about 5 mph or better, crossing the river upwards of 30 times. I found myself enjoying the ride and becoming less and less concerned about bears and more and more enthralled in the wilderness and beauty around me. I enjoyed the feeling of a good horse under me and his strength and effort in making his way through difficult water crossings, over and around log jams and blow-downs, and picking his way through rocky terrain and thickets. J gave me all he had. I was very pleased with my gelding and pleased with my surroundings. I thoroughly enjoyed that ride, and I think he did as well.

By the time J and I reached the trailhead, it was nearly 2pm, leaving me very little margin for safety in getting back to camp before nightfall. I found the two wayward horses calmly grazing on the sparse grass on the shore of the creek, near the bridge. As evidenced by their tracks, they had been up to the trailer, but finding nothing to eat there, had come back down to Beaver Creek and settled down to wait there. I contemplated staying overnight in the living-quarters trailer (fantasizing about a hot shower), but decided against it, since Derek would need me if he had killed a moose. Both J and I were tired, but I could see no alternative than to return to camp immediately. I moved my saddle and bridle to Ginger, grabbed some soda pop and snacks from the trailer, and headed back up the trail. I also grabbed some dog food for Lucky, as our supply at camp was running low.

Ginger wasn’t very willing to be heading back to the hunt camp at first, but after a few hundred yards on the trail, she settled-in and headed off down the trail at a good clip. I ponied J, and Shadow followed along of his own accord.

Back along the river we went, backtracking our trail, river crossing after river crossing, mile after mile.  On one river crossing, Ginger stepped into a deep hole and ended up swimming the last few yards to the far shore. I went in up to my hips. My rifle scabbard filled with water and had to be dumped out. I pulled the rifle from the scabbard, emptied the action and magazine and let the water drain out of it as well. Luckily, my saddle bags stayed dry and my pants, which were waterproof, stayed dry as well. My leather boots, however, were soaked and my feet were wet and cold most of the ride. I decided then that I would buy myself a pair of waterproof boots for the next such trip!

We arrived at camp just before darkness settled in. I had been in the saddle nearly 9 hours. I was ready for a hot meal and some rest. I had ridden approximately 38 miles, through some very tough country, crossing the river nearly 60 times. Both myself and the horses were pretty done-in.

I found it interesting that I had seen so many fresh bear tracks along the way throughout the entire day, but didn’t see a single bear.

Derek had only arrived back at camp minutes before I had. We found that a gust of wind had come through and quite thoroughly destroyed our camp. The tarp was blown aside and the framework had been knocked down. Some of our gear and supplies had been blown around the camp. Luckily, I had staked-down our tent when we set it up, so that was still in place.

We set about getting the camp back in order and rebuilding our camp lean-to frame and roof, after which we made ourselves a quick meal and headed for bed, as the wind began to rise. We had no sooner laid ourselves down, when the wind began to howl. Since it was still early evening, we laid in our sleeping bags and watched some video movies Derek had stored on his digital tablet. It was tough to watch the movies and tougher to hear them, with the wind howling like it was. Eventually, we gave up on that and just tried to go to sleep. Sometime around 10pm the wind rose to around 50mph, with gusts passing 70mph, in my estimation, and our tent collapsed. Derek has broad shoulders, so when the tent side collapsed against his shoulders, I was left on the downwind side of the tent with a bit of headroom, quite comfortable. We heard our tarp and the roof frame again collapse and we knew our camp would be in shambles in the morning.

Then, just as quick as it came upon us, the wind was gone. There was one last heavy gust, then all was calm. The storm had lasted about two hours.

We found one of the dome tent arch poles had snapped under the weight of the wind. We were able to do a makeshift repair that night, using a fiberglass rod from Derek’s electric fence parts, that kept the tent upright through the remainder of our stay in camp.

The following morning, we again repaired our camp roof frame, re-stretched the tarp, and reinforced the braces. We also took some time to sink a couple posts to use as tie posts for the horses, which proved extremely useful over the remainder of our stay. Later, we also  built a makeshift corral for the horses, which we will reinforce and improve on our next trip.

The following day, which would be day 13 of our stay in camp, both Derek and I packed up a couple horses, me riding J Golden, and headed back up into the foothills. Derek had seen a couple bull moose the previous day and was excited to find that the moose rut had finally begun.

On that day we did, indeed see a good sized bull moose, but it moved away from us into deep forests, where it would be impossible to hunt. After a long day, we started back toward camp. On the ride back, J got going a little fast down a slope. He stepped into a bit of a hole and came up solidly short on a front leg. I was nearly unseated from the saddle. However, he just kept on going and never missed another stride, as we made our way over the next four or five miles to camp. The next evening, however, I noticed J’s front right knee was swollen like a football. I believe he hyperextended his knee coming down that slope. He was not limping, but his knee was stiff and obviously sore. I gave him the next couple days off to rest and by the time we packed out, the swelling had gone down quite a bit. We packed him light and he made the trip out just fine.

The day after J hurt his knee, which was Thursday, Derek and I headed back up into the foothills, intent on coming out with a bull moose. About five miles from camp we came upon the same bull moose we had seen the previous day, along with a smaller bull and several cows. However, this time Derek decided to keep looking, as this bull was not in the trophy class Derek was hoping for.

On one particular hillside, we parked our horses and Derek headed off around the crest to scope for moose. Shortly thereafter, he came running back, yelling in a whisper voice…I think you can imagine what I’m trying to describe…that there was a pack of wolves on the next hill over! We made a plan to try to take a closer look at them and possibly to get a shot at one, as Derek had a wolf tag as well as a moose tag.

I crossed the crest of the hill and set myself up in a good spot. I attached my iphone 7 to an adapter and fitted it to Derek’s 20-60X spotting scope and began watching the wolves. They were lounging on the adjacent ridge, just relaxing, apparently after a good meal. The range was about 700 yards. I counted 16 wolves on that ridge.

Derek set himself up on the other side of a saddle. He had an electronic coyote call that he hoped would attract the pack to come closer, as wolves and coyotes are mortal enemies and wolves will attack and kill coyotes at every opportunity. I got my iphone camera set up while Derek got himself set up. When he turned on the coyote call, we were treated to one of the most spectacular scenes I have ever witnessed. Below is the video I took, in its entirety, with my iphone 7. If you turn the volume to 100%, you will be treated to a wonderful and eerie chorus of the voices of 16 Alaskan Timber Wolves.

By way of explanation, at about 1:37min, you will also hear the electronic coyote call and will see the wolves respond to it. You will also see that the wolves were quite content to remain on their ridge and just howl warnings at the intruding coyotes. These wolves were fat and happy and not in any mood to be off chasing coyotes.

Derek was unsuccessful in scoring a wolf kill. However, we knew from that moment that our moose hunt was over. About 30 minutes later, we saw eight more wolves come down from the hills above us and join the pack, bringing the total to 24 wolves in that one pack. We realized we would see no trophy bull moose in that area for quite a while.

When a pack of wolves, especially one of that size, moves into an area, they decimate the wildlife in the area, then move on when there is nothing left to feed on. Even the mighty Grizzly Bear had moved out of the area. We saw one Black bear and cub on a far mountainside during the entire hunt. While some would have one believe that wolves only feed upon weak and injured animals, that is actually far from the truth. There simply aren’t enough weak and injured animals to feed them. The wolves will feed on the bulls and the calves, the largest bulls being the most vulnerable. The wolves will chase them into the dense forest, where the bull is less able to maneuver to defend itself, due to the breadth of its antlers, then the kill comes quickly. While wolves seldom kill bear, they will harass even the Grizzly until they simply leave the area. It was a great disappointment to find this wolf pack in our hunting area, uncontrolled and overpopulated. It will take years for the game to be re-established in this particular region.

We made plans to pack out the following day. We came out without a moose, but I wouldn’t call it an unsuccessful hunt.

Breaking camp didn’t take long. It always takes longer to set up than to take down. We had everything packed and ready to move by about 1pm. We headed back up the trail to Beaver Creek at a very nice pace, even for a Missouri Fox Trotter. Despite not having a designated trail to follow and the 30 or so river crossings on the way out, we made excellent time.

The 18.7 miles took us three hours and 40 minutes from the hunt camp to the trailer. That even allowed us time to feed and water the horses and head over to Buckshot Betty’s for a nice, warm, steak dinner.

We slept in the very nice living quarters of Derek’s trailer that night, after taking nice hot showers, and rested very well. Before noon the following day, we were on the road, headed home.

We retraced our route heading south, with one alteration. We stopped at the hot springs at Liard River Hot Springs Provincial Park, British Columbia, where we took an hour to soak in the hot springs. That was a stop that was well worth the time. Wish I had gotten some pictures, but we left the phones in the truck.

The trip home was a fast one. While we were on the hunt, a devastating forest fire burned in Utah County, completely surrounding Derek’s ranch in Diamond Fork, east of Spanish Fork, Utah. The fire had taken out most of the vegetation in the hills surrounding his place, but he had lost no buildings, thanks to the efforts of several fire crews.

However, as we headed south from Alaska, a severe storm warning was in effect for Utah County and Derek feared is ranch would suffer more damage from uncontrolled runoff from the storm, including landslides and flooding, that was caused by the fire itself. We spent two nights on the road in Canada, then drove straight through overnight to Idaho Falls, where we made a stop at the home of Derek’s daughter’s family, 22 straight hours. The horses were glad for a rest and some grazing time in a grassy pasture.  After a little breakfast and a short nap, we hit the road again. We arrived at Derek’s place that afternoon, in time for Derek to make some preparations for the storm to protect his home and buildings.

I was glad to be home as well. It was a wonderful adventure, but very tough on both men and horses.  The horses all lost quite a bit of weight on the trip, but all came through healthy and well.  The horses did very well in the trailer both up and back and we had no injuries to horse or man, outside the normal bumps and bruises.

Going into and out of Canada was painless. We had our paperwork in order and nothing to declare other than horses and rifles. Handguns are prohibited in Canada, so we left those at home to begin with.

Derek and I are heading back up to Alaska again next week. Looking forward to it. I will be taking Apollo as my saddle mount, since I sold J last spring.  I’ll try to be more diligent in getting my posts and photos up in a more reasonable timeframe.

It’s just that I have been having so much fun on the horses this year that keeping up my posts sort of fell by the wayside.

Stay tuned for posts about my Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon ride last May and my trip to the Jim Bridger Wilderness last month.