Caribou in NW Alaska

[walt maslen]

Backcountry skiing Kotzebue Style!


Hi guys:

I just returned from a all day skiing field trip with my 8th grade class and it was just wonderful and worth sharing. I offer skiing every spring to my 8th graders and every year we take an all day skiing field trip up into Noatak National Park.

It is a highly prized event and the kids work very hard getting in shape for this big day. We put the kids and gear into basket sleds, hook them to sno-gos and head up about 16 miles into the park for a full day of skiing, crashing and memories.

The kids ski 3 loops that include lakes, tundra, lots of trees and some very impressive hills. I am attaching some photos to show off and the last few are of a large herd of caribou that we bumped into late in the day. Well make that 2 herds of caribou. Total was well over 300 animals with group 1 running at over 100 and group 2 pushing 200-250.

The kids made a neat stalk on the larger group and we got with in 80 yards of them and then the spooked and almost ran over us coming with in 10 yards of one of the boys! Very cool!

Enjoy your spring. We have 2-3 weeks before it is all gone as we have over 10 feet of snow in the hills and it is just beginning to warm up!

Who says we don’t teach our kids anything about the outdoors in Alaska! Remember that 400,000 caribou and lots of wolves can’t be wrong!

Walt
Northwest Alaska Back Country Rentals
Kotzebue AK
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