The Wild Kingdom Hunt

Community archaeology ended on Friday with a backbreaking day of backfilling in our excavation (more on this in another post to come), and after a quick dinner and shower Mike Pfeffer, Mark Rusk and I headed up in the evening to go deer hunting and to rejuvinate our spirit. We chose to hunt an area we have nicknamed the 'wild kingdom'. A few years ago while hunting there with my friend Justin Hays, he commented that there were so many deer he felt he was in a scene from the old TV show 'Wild Kingdom'. The moniker stuck.

The hike up the mountain with camping gear was a slog, but the wildflowers and views at the top were worth it. A dense fog rolled in from the sea and covered the low country with a white blanket. Friends told us later that they were surprised we were able to see anything the fog in town was so thick. But up high it was glorious. The top photo shows the wildflowers near camp in the evening - fields of fleabane (asters), arnica and paintbrush. After an epic sunset that reminded us of what we missed in the rain while hunting last weekend we hit the sack with visions of big deer dancing through our heads.

We woke up at 5AM to a red horizon over the fog blanket with islands and mountains poking up through the mist (second photo). The snow topped volcanos of the Alaska Peninsula were clear on the horizon 50 miles away. Over coffee we glassed the surrounding bowls for deer (third and fourth photos). Finally it seems the deer have moved up into the alpine - the late spring had delayed their annual summer migration to the high country. This morning there were deer everywhere!

By 7:45 we had harvested two sitka blacktail deer, and Mark and Mike (who had done the shooting) had to restrain me from harvesting a third. We were too far back in the hills to even think about carrying out three deer. And two deer were hard enough. In the bottom photo Mike and I admire the view on the way home. Tomorrow we will cut the deer up into tasty packages to savor all winter long. When I open a package of deer meat I always like to check the date on the outside indicating when we harvested it. This date will bring back memories of a camping trip on the top of the world. Patrick