The spot we chose as our base camp was kind of a shot in the dark as far as if we were going to find any caribou 5 miles out or not. But using my GPS we discovered that a road went about 2.5 miles off the Dalton that we would be able to use to hike in on then snowshoe from there so the 5 plus miles that we'd have to hike in wouldn't be so bad.
Our plan was to stay in the van for a night then do a day hike, about 5 miles off the Dalton Highway, do some looking around with the binoculars and go from there. On the hike in we hauled a minimum amount of gear in our sleds, some food, clothing and our sleeping bags just for safety sake. After getting a little over 5 miles in we came to a small hill top that Travis hiked up to have a look around and upon his return said that there were hundreds of caribou on the other side. So we packed up our sleds went back to our base camp and prepped for a 3 day trip back to that spot. That day hike was about a 10 hour venture so getting back to our base camp with the Arctic Oven that Travis had made himself was a welcome rest.
An "Arctic Oven" is a tent made here in Alaska that uses two heavy layers of material, one thick and breathable and an outer waterproof shell. They are designed to be heated with a small wood stove and can get very very warm, even in 40 below weather. One of the problems with them is that they are very expensive, around $1300 for the smallest one and the other being they are very heavy, about 40lbs. for the small size. So Travis decided to just buy the material they are made out of and sew together his own version. A couple things that differ from his to the store bought style are his doesn't have a floor and it just requires one center pole, or tree trunk, to erect were as the store bought one needs lots of poles and goes up like a cabin tent. And the greatest advantage to his tent was it saved him about a $1000 doing it himself!
At our little base camp we had set up the Arctic Oven but decided just to use it as our cook shack, to warm up and dry our clothes and gear. With all of our gear out of the van it made for a nice little camper so we used it to sleep in. We both brought very warm sleeping bags but at night and in the morning we warmed it up with a small propane heater and one of our white gas cook stoves.
I have a some pics and a video of our hike to our soon to be camping site and of base camp. The first photo is of the Travis unloading some Duraflame logs from the van, which was our stove fuel being that there are no trees in the arctic. The second is our camp in relation to the Dalton Highway. We were camped on the road I spoke of hiking in on but it's fenced off from vehicles so that's as far from the highway as we could park the van. The third pic is of Travis, rockin the expedition style hair do, and I hanging out in the Arctic Oven after a long day. And the forth photo shows Buster, an old retired sled dog, showing he can still pull a load. The final pic is of Travis breaking trail with his snowshoes on and the Brooks Range in the background.
The video I put together is of our "scouting trip," and our mess back at base camp prepping for a few days off the highway.
In the next post we make our way back out, off the highway and still see lots of caribou!!!
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