PAXSON -- Opening day on Aug. 10 didn't dawn, it washed in. The heaviest rain of the summer greeted hunters along the Denali Highway, limiting visibility in the hills. Bird hunters dealt with wet brush and soaked dogs in their quest for a limited number of ptarmigan. Those seeking caribou had it even tougher. Most animals are still very high because of the unusually warm summer, and fog blanketed the upper hillsides.
Most of the high country on the eastern end of the highway is in the Clearwater Controlled Use Area. That's non-motorized country, and it's where the caribou are. Seventy-nine roadside camps were set up between milepost 31 and the Maclaren River at milepost 42. All but a half-dozen camps were hunting with ATVs, and the hunters looked wet and without caribou by early evening.
Bicycle and walk-in hunters fared somewhat better. Hunters I talked to at four out of five of those camps had taken animals, and one had passed on an opportunity, looking for a larger bull. Everyone hunting north of the Denali had seen caribou.
Sloppy riding
There are caribou south of the highway, but they're scarce. Trails at mileposts 36, 49 and 52 all had 20-plus rigs. Heavy traffic on the trails coupled with the wet weather made riding unpleasant for most. By noon on Aug. 11, more than half of the camps had packed up and moved.
Ptarmigan hunters were also headed for drier hillsides. Even the most hardcore bird-dog enthusiasts draw the line when a sopping-wet retriever jumps in the front seat of the truck and knocks over the hot coffee! Wet dogs are OK when there are plenty of birds, but the chicks are still small and many birds are up on the hills, feeding on the early berry crop.
Blueberry pickers were about the only satisfied hunters I saw. One can hunt berry patches from the SUV window and pick between heavy rain showers. I saw several groups with 5-gallon buckets that were pretty close to full. The Denali Highway has its best blueberry crop in years, though the berry crop seems light in the Paxson and Sourdough areas.
Early season moose hunters have also been heading home light, and my sense of it is that only a few moose have been taken during the first 10 days of the season. Federal subsistence hunters have been frustrated too. I would like to say the moose are high in the hills, but early indications are that the moose population may be low.
Poor season?
Community moose hunts have just begun, and it's tough to say how these hunts will play out, but of the two groups of hunters I spoke with, the first party had seen no moose and the second only a cow and calf. Other areas may look better. Fish and Game reports the overall Unit 13 moose population is good even though the upper areas of the area were weak in 2014 and may be the same this season.
All things considered, my opinion is that the 2015 hunting season is not going to be hot. Of course, no one knows what the caribou will do. Two weeks from now, the hills may be covered with animals streaming out of the mountains. Maybe.
Perhaps the weather will cooperate too. If the sun is out and the mornings are crisp, the lack of game is easily excused. But the Denali forecast is for rain this coming weekend. One upside is that a week of rain will move the ptarmigan down to the heavier willow thickets. Heavy rain may get the caribou moving too. Rain also keeps the hunters traveling.
John Schandelmeier is a lifelong Alaskan who lives with his family near Paxson. He is a Bristol Bay commercial fisherman and two-time winner of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race.