Jon and I have been here before—heavy legs and burning lungs. We’ve circled this peak, crossing boulder field after boulder field. It’s taken nearly four hours to complete the circuit around this 12,000-foot Uinta peak. I’m drained. Ida’s standard Lab trot has surrendered to a nearby amble. But then I see it—for most, it would…
It’s the second day of the upland season and I am in a pre-dawn traffic jam. I’m following a string of crimson taillights up a dusty grade and poor excuse for a road. I’m unsure exactly how long the line extends at this point, but we are all crawling toward a pin on a map…
Spike camp was two miles from base — as the raven flies not really that far in this expansive National Forest. But as flatlanders taking on the thin air of elevated places, two miles is a decent gap to begin separating yourself from those less prepared to depart known trails and the easy-breathing comfort of…
We all have limits. But that edge is never static. It’s a river that rages perilously close or meanders docile and aimless in the distance. Most people are perfectly comfortable keeping a healthy distance—there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But there is something about that torrent that is captivating and revealing. What we see…
I can feel him in the distance looking down on us. The Deacon of this mountain is unimpressed with our pace and route. Yet this goat still watches as one worn little setter leads us up a chute 1,500 feet below the pulpit he’s chosen. Every now and then I glance skyward to see…
Something is wrong with me. Any other sane bird hunter would have packed up and moved to the interior where the bird numbers and density are greater. But I’m entrenched in the Kenai and I can’t get away from it. I’ve shot a White-tailed Ptarmigan already. I’ve seen where they live. I know their confounding…
The wind is gusting at my back collapsing my empty game bag. It’s a chilly reminder, as if I needed one. In the distance I can still pickup Steve and the deft setter Winchester, navigating their way uphill beside the creek that tumbles the opposite direction in this cut. We’ve got them on elevation. The…
Alaska and I are at odds. I’m here to take her birds. She’s not giving them up easily. I’m to earn them one vertical foot at a time until she has determined that sufficient toll has been collected. She’s happy to show amazing places, jaw-dropping beauty, an abundance of nature viewing unrivaled anywhere else in…