A gorgeous end to Interior Alaska's ptarmigan-hunting season

We pulled alongside the gravel road at 6 a.m. to change into our hunting clothes and hiking boots. Our distressed optic nerves and fatigued bodies needed a short nap after a 12-hour drive and before we headed out on the snow pack for one last bird hunt.

Our expedition had started in the daylight hours on the Seward Highway the previous day. We had watched the sun set in flamingo pink hues across Turnagain Arm. Then we sat silently for miles of road winding along rivers and between mountains.

The moon followed us along the Glenn Highway until we forgot it because after midnight, the northern lights came out as the road shot straight as an arrow for the length of the show. This time of year — before the high travel season begins — highways are virtually clear of ice and other motorists, especially at night.

Rabbits, fox, owls

The wildlife count exceeded the number of cars on the road. We counted a hundred still-white rabbits, one fox, and two owls emerging and disappearing into brown ditches before we arrived at our destination — a few windblown slopes where we'd found ptarmigan before.

Winchester, our English setter, woke up from his long night of back-seat napping with the only bright eyes of our group. He was shaking with excitement and took off out of the truck to run a mile before either of us had found our shotguns, shells and vests.

The GPS showed he was on point a half-mile away — it sends a signal when the dog stops moving.

"Do you think he found birds or is he going to the bathroom?" I asked. What I meant was that I wasn't quite ready to charge downhill more than 800 yards for birds only to climb back up if he was taking his morning constitutional. My muscles resembled the shape and stiffness of the car seat.

I took a few deep breaths of snow-purified air. The sky was blue, and the sun lit the snow so that it sparkled like fields of crushed diamonds.

The sound of ptarmigan wings in flight along with clucking echoed back to us from the bottom of the valley. It was too late to follow him to the birds — they had flown while we dallied. I thought of how to best describe the sound of their call — a nasal ribbit or garbled bark.

We followed Winchester up a hill and watched him zig and zag as he caught the smell of another covey of birds and whirled around to run in their direction.

The wind had blown the surface of the snow into a solid pack so that none of us broke through except in a few places when we dropped knee-deep in a soft spot. It was easy walking most of the morning, but we knew the snow would soften by afternoon.

Better than espresso

Waking up to the morning in the mountains is better than a jolt of espresso. Instead of fueling my nervous system to remain alert, the surroundings calmed and vitalized me. I watched Winchester's white feathered legs and tail flash as he ran the sunny slopes and caught myself looking at my feet as white moths flew out of the snow. My sightseeing made me slower to react the moment birds appeared.

Ptarmigan hunting with a bird dog is a gentleman's — or gentlewoman's — pursuit in that the birds and dogs are polite. There is none of the dangerous game adrenaline leading up to the flush. The dog points the bird, and the bird usually holds. It doesn't fly until flushed by the hunter, who comes to her senses eventually.

Birds were abundant, and we hunted until the snow was soft. Our footsteps quiet on the snowpack, we heard only the sound of Winchester's panting and birds of various orders that filled the air. Ravens mimicked the sound of ptarmigan and Winchester followed their calls to the remnants of a caribou dug out of the snow by a predator.

Our eyes were sore from the road and the sun on the snow, and after just a morning of hunting, we loaded up in the truck to drive more than 700 miles back home. In just a few days, our round-trip travel in Alaska equaled the distance between Oregon and Texas or Virginia and North Dakota.

The traveling bird hunter exists in the Lower 48 as well as in Alaska. They often travel by road for the sake of the bird dog, who fares better in a car than the cargo hold of a commercial plane. In his home state, Winchester enjoys many dog-friendly hotels and restaurants that have a "puppy patty" — a single hamburger patty — on the menu.

We have made our last bird hunt in the Interior for five years, and each year say we won't do again. It's always a red-eye road trip on a tight schedule. It's a misery of mile-by-mile readjustments of the legs, measurement of hours by junk food consumed, and scenery so beautiful you start to think of the north country as one great moving picture too grand to ever explore in a lifetime. And it is.

MoonPie reward

One of the small things that makes the trip worthwhile comes in the form of the MoonPie — a graham-cracker cookie with marshmallow filling dipped in a flavored coating.

Like Spam, the MoonPie is often associated with certain regions of the country. Particularly popular in the southern states, it's often paired with RC Cola. The pies start to appear for sale on our route at The Hub of Alaska in Glennallen and are available at other family-owned gas stations and stores as we travel north.

It makes me wonder how a baked good that originally catered to a Kentucky coal miner's request for a snack "as big as the moon" found a home in the land of the midnight sun. They are the sole treat on our trip, and we rediscover them each year.

Although Baked Alaska may be the state's unofficial dessert, the MoonPie is the official dessert of our annual last expedition to hunt birds.

Christine Cunningham of Soldotna is a lifelong Alaskan and avid hunter. On alternate weeks, she writes about Alaska hunting. Contact Christine at cunningham@yogaforduckhunters.com