North Slope caribou
I had stopped hopping from tussock to tussock attempting to keep my feet dry. Frequent missteps and sneaky depths had put water over my gaiters half a dozen times in the first two and a half miles and we were only halfway to where we’d make camp. It was 39-degrees, but our pace kept us warm. We had a goal.
There is a five-mile buffer from the Dalton Highway to keep hunters from sending bullets at caribou, but in the direction of the pipeline. So my buddy Ryan and I had figured that we’d take our bows and be willing to hike five miles from the road across the tundra to where the rifle range started.
If we couldn’t make it happen with our bows, we’d go the distance and there’d be caribou.
There weren’t.
