Bear hunt! Part 1

As soon as Travis and I had arrived back in Fairbanks, after the trip to the arctic, we began to prep for the next venture. Our plan was to head south about an hour and a half from Fairbanks, to a property recently purchased by Travis, load up a snowmachine and head off into the woods to possibly harvest a grizzly bear.

I think we spent only two days in town, to resupply and touch base with our friends, then it was back on the road again.

Our first destination was a property Travis had purchased this fall, a mile or two off the Parks highway in between Nenana and Healy. He bought the property so he would have a place to go to when he wasn't working at Denali park, about a half hour to forty five minute drive south.

A lot of work still needs to be done on the property to make it a livable location but for the time being Travis is using it to store lots of his stuff. One thing he stores there is his snowmachine. To go anywhere from his property, other than the highway, it's the only way to get around.

Several years ago Travis also bought a property way out in the bush he calls his "remote property." And buying the property close to the highway gives him a great starting point to get to the remote property.

Travis is very familiar with the whole area from the highway property to his remote property because he has traveled to and from his remote property in every way imaginable; Canoe, jetboat, snowmachine, bush plane and hiking. So heading out with him to go hunt for bears had the feeling of just a walk in the park. And I couldn't have been more wrong.

This fall Travis had to clear a lot of trees just to get a vehicle to his property so there was plenty of wood laying around that needed to be "disposed of." So after getting some what settled we started up one of the many brush piles and enjoyed a nice bonfire for the evening.

After a night camping in van we finished sorting our gear, packed up the snowmachine and sleds it would be towing and hit the trail. I have a photo of the machine with a trailer hooked up but there is also second trailer also being towed out of view. On the second sled we had and extra 15 gallons of gas for the snowmachine and a couple gallons of fuel for the chainsaw. On the first sled, the one in view of the pic, was full of lots of gear. We had everything from sleeping gear and clothes, to shovels, a chainsaw and of course our rifles. When we packed everything in the big sled we had wrapped everything in a huge tarp to give our gear a little extra protection, which turned out to be a very smart thing to do when it came to our first major obstacle.

The first part of the trail took us down "power line roads" and across a couple creeks not frozen over yet. When we crossed one of the creeks with open water, it was cold enough out to freeze the track suspension all the way down, with all the weight we had on the machine. I forgot to mention that not only were Travis and I riding on the machine but I was holding his 60 pound dog in my lap as well. The machine we were on is considered a 2 up long track so it is designed for a passenger but it is quite old and would bottom out the suspension relatively easily. We were able to get the suspension back to where it was but upon hitting a big bump it would bottom out, get stuck and we'd have to get off and force it back up again.

The trail along the power lines ran about 10 miles from the highway property then we turned onto nice wide roads that wound their way though a rural subdivision. Someday the same type of roads will work their way through the subdivision where Travis bought his property. After another 10 miles or so we turned off the road and onto a trail that would lead us to our first major obstacle, the Teklanika river. The trail at this point had not been gone over yet this season an still didn't have enough snow on it to make it flat. The snowmachine trails also make for great game trails so all of the wildlife use them as well. This creates a single giant rut and until there is a lot of snow makes for difficult snowmachining. And to add to the difficulty, the interior of Alaska if filled with things called tussocks, large, hard, grassy mounds that don't move unless you chop them away with an axe. Needless to say on this part of the trail it was faster to get off the machine and walk.

After about three hours into our journey we came to the Teklanika river. There was still about a fifty foot gap of open water we somehow had to get a snowmachine, two sleds, two humans and a dog across. Travis had predicted that there still may be open water so he thoughtfully packed hip waders. So getting the people, a dog and possibly the big tub sled across wasn't a problem but that left our transportation, the snowmachine.

Before we left on this trip, back in Fairbanks, Travis had mentioned that there could be open water that we'd have to cross. I told him that I had skipped machines over water before so it was definitely possible.

Standing at the river side with Travis he said, "what do you think?" And after staring at the rushing water for a few moments I said, "I'll do it!" We unhooked the sleds and I made a couple practice runs to find a good line to the rivers edge and set up to aim for a flat spot of the bank on the other side. As soon as I made my run towards the river the machine fouled one of it's spark plugs and I had no power when I hit the throttle! But I went for it anyway! Made it across with no problem and didn't even get that wet!

After I finished jumping for joy and Travis picked his jaw up off the ground we start to prep for getting the rest of the stuff across. While he unpacked his waders I kept cruising around on the machine making sure it wouldn't freeze solid on us. He made his way across the river, with the help of a couple walking sticks to help stabilize himself in the rushing water. I backed up the snowmachine to the river, as close as I could safely get, so that we could tie a rope to the machine to help pull the sleds across. Travis would also walk with each of the sleds to help keep them stable.

While pulling the first sled across Travis lost his footing and fell in the river! Luckily he still had a hand on the sled so he didn't get totally submerged. I continued to pull with the snowmachine until Travis and the sled were out of the river then ran to his side. Calmly Travis said, "ok, lets get a fire going."

Both of us carry "Strike a fire" sticks in almost every pocket with some matches and I quickly grabbed some drift wood and had a fire going I a few seconds. While I got the fire going Travis was making his way back across the river to get the other sled and his dog Buster. We did the same thing with the other sled but this time Travis had to drag Buster across as well! As soon as got himself, the dog and the sled across he ran for the fire! After I had the sled secured I got Buster up to the fire as well, got the flames stoked up good and then went to the sled and unpacked some dry clothes for Travis. "Well," I said. "This is one hell of a way to start off a trip."

While Travis was warming his bones by the fire I took the snowmachine, after replacing the fouled spark plug, up the trail a ways to investigate our next obstacle. Travis was concerned about more open water in a slough a quarter mile or so up the trail. I came back and let him know that we were good to go, that it's frozen solid.

After getting his pants and bibs fairly dry and a dry pair of socks on he said he was good to go. "Only about 5 miles to go, I should be alright til we get to the cabin.," he said. Back on the trail we went. Some of the trail went through the woods and was not to bad but then it was back to the single track, heavily tussocked trail. That was the longest 5 miles I thought I'd ever witness on a snowmachine, but once again, I thought wrong.

Six and a half hours and 30 miles in to our trip we finally pulled out onto "One fish lake," our destination for night. We pulled up to the cabin located on a small peninsula and immediately saw we had more work in front of us. Their were openings for windows but nothing in the holes. And when we opened the cabin door found I was completely trashed from bears. I can for surely say it was a bear because of the claw marks all over the plastic hanging from the walls.

We jumped into action. First we had to split some wood, from log rounds Travis had left the last time he was there and got a fire going in the wood stove. Then we started cleaning up the mess in the cabin. When doing that I came across lots of nails in coffee cans and found a hammer as well! So I took some extra plastic that had been ripped off the walls and proceeded to cover the window openings, inside and out. And when I ran out of spare plastic a trash bag seemed to work quite nicely.

After we had the cabin habitable again we cooked up tons of food and crashed hard for the night. Thinking we would take the next day "off," and do some work around the cabin. Well, plans change.........

The photos today start with a "little" camp fire at Travis' property. Then the snowmachine all loaded up and ready to hit the trail. And the rest are of the cabin on One fish lake, outside and inside.

The video I shot just after skimming across the river on the snowmachine and just before Travis literally got his feet wet.