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It is hard not to be bear-aware whilehunting in Alaska. From the moment youget off the jetliner in Anchorage you aredeluged with bear images in Alaska. Thegiant world record Kodiak Brown bearstands glaring, preserved for eternity in hisglass enclosure in the airport. Every storein the state has copies of the book “AlaskaBear Tales” which is filled with stories ofbear lore, encounters, and maulings. Read-ing this book is almost obligatory to everytourist, hunter and visitor to Alaska. Shops,restaurants, gas stations, campgrounds,and businesses all across the state bearthe name of “Grizzly.” No other animalepitomizes the state of Alaska like theBrown/Grizzly bear. Although the mooseis the official state animal of Alaska, it’sprobably only because Alaska’s declarationof statehood was many years after thegrizzly was already named state animal ofMontana and California.Alaska is the lastfrontier and the grizzly is the symbol ofAmerica’s wilderness.

On my previous trips to Alaska, I’ve liedawake imagining them padding aroundcamp while I slept in my nylon fortress.You awake after sleeping your first nightin the Alaska Bush with a sense of subtleeuphoria knowing you weren’t draggedout of your tent and eaten by a bear thatnight. It’s a different feeling to be in bearcountry carrying around the subconsciousknowledge that you are not on top of thefood chain on that mountain. SeasonedAlaskan outdoorsmen and hunters willtell you the bears don’t bother them andyou get used to knowing bears are alwaysout there. Nevertheless, most are alsopacking a really big gun for fishing tripsand sleeping with a loaded pistol in thetent. I guess that’s the Alaskan version of“getting used to it.”

It was on my first trip to Alaska over adecade ago when I started thinking abouthunting grizzly with more than just idlefantasizing. Most people hold a fascination

Steve and I hit it off right away.We hadgotten to know each other over the phonebut being on-foot together in some “wild-ass” country cultivates a bond betweenhunters. Conversation came easy and weboth shared a similar sense of humor thatfrequently left us laughing aloud. Steveimpressed me right away with his intelli-gence, outdoor skills and his incrediblelevel of physical fitness. More than justJoe Blow who got his guide license, Steveis a former military man with special opstraining, a lifelong Nordic skier, and anexperienced mountaineer and backcoun-try expert. He is probably the toughestindividual I have ever had the privilege ofhunting with. Steve cut his teeth guiding inthe formidable glacier country of Alaska’sWrangell Mountains. Steve could havewalked me into the ground on the first daybut matched his pace to mine, knowingfrom experience that a worn out hunterdoesn’t kill many bears from the tent.

I had spent all summer doing as muchhiking as possible in the mountains nearmy home in Colorado. I live at 8,600 feetin elevation and spent most of my time

and reverence for these great bears and I was no different. I had read bear bookssince I was a kid almost memorizingFrank Dufresne’s “No Room for Bears.”I was in Denali National Park and my wifeand I watched a big blonde-shoulderedboar grizzly grubbing for berries high on amountainside more suited for Dall’s sheep.

More than 12 years later, this dreambecame a reality when I booked a huntwith Steve Johnson, owner/operator ofUltimate Alaskan Adventures. My goodfriend Victor Clark had also booked a huntwith Steve for Dall sheep the month beforemy hunt and it was because of Victor’s faithin Steve, and his one-on-one personalizedservice that I decided to go on a hunt ofmy own. I pestered Steve with the standardquestions in a few phone conversationsduring the months preceding my hunt andhe answered them all with patience andhonesty. One of the reasons I chose Stevewas that I wanted a true backcountryAlaskan Wilderness adventure. It wouldbe a trek into the wilderness on foot witheverything I hoped to need stuffed into apack and strapped to my back.

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laska is a land of superlatives, epic landscapes, andthousands of nameless peaks and waterways. It is a landthat I am drawn to, in a way that no other place can matchbecause of the grand scale and beauty of the land and thewildlife that inhabits it. Remnants of wild creatures fromthe Pleistocene era, Alaska’s wildlife, exhibit the extremesof evolution. Eons of adaptation to living on the edge ofpolar climate have given the animals of Alaska uniquecharacteristics. It’s these characteristics that lure peoplelike myself to hunt this last great frontier. I have huntedthe tundra for caribou bulls with snow-white manes androcking chair sized racks. I’ve hunted the taiga forests forthe giant Alaskan bull moose and felt “schooled” andhumbled after a week of playing cat and mouse with thisdraft-horse sized member of the deer family. While onthese North Country adventures, I have seen ever-presentgrizzly tracks in the field but had never seen a live grizzlywhile hunting.

By Mike Duplan, Field Editor

��“In hunting, the findingand killing of the game is after all but a part

of the whole.

The free, self-reliant,adventurous life,

with its rugged and stalwart democracy;

the wild surroundings, the grand beauty of

the scenery, the chance to study the ways andhabits of the woodland

creatures–all these uniteto give to the career

of the wilderness hunterits peculiar charm.

The chase is among thebest of all national

pastimes; it cultivates that vigorous manliness

for the lack of which in a nation,

as in an individual, the possession of no other qualities

can possibly atone.”

�Theodore Roosevelt

Sagamore Hill, June,1893

��“In hunting, the findingand killing of the game is after all but a part

of the whole.

The free, self-reliant,adventurous life,

with its rugged and stalwart democracy;

the wild surroundings, the grand beauty of

the scenery, the chance to study the ways andhabits of the woodland

creatures–all these uniteto give to the career

of the wilderness hunterits peculiar charm.

The chase is among thebest of all national

pastimes; it cultivates that vigorous manliness

for the lack of which in a nation,

as in an individual, the possession of no other qualities

can possibly atone.”

�Theodore Roosevelt

Sagamore Hill, June,1893

a

The the view into the valley above the “bear camp”shows the rich colors of September in Alaska.The reddish colored vegetation is low growing blueberry bushes that draw the bears to this high country.

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rock. His magnificent fall coat was primewith long flowing white hair. The billy wasbacklit in the evening sunlight giving hima silver halo as his hair blew and shim-mered. He looked invincible in his highmountain lair, fully outfitted by MotherNature to survive one of the longest andmost extreme winters on the planet.

The sight of “Bad Bob”and the locationof our “bear camp”fueled my imaginationthat night until a dreamless sleep tookover. It’s hard not to let your imaginationrun just a little wild with the vision of agiant bear fresh in your mind. We wokethe next morning to a valley rich with fallcolor and full of bears and Dall rams. Asow grizzly and two cubs fed in the berriesway up the valley and a lone boar wasmoving towards a high mountain pass asif he had an agenda – better berries, newscenery or just wanderlust. Only he knewhis agenda and we were too far away to doanything about it. The bachelor group ofsheep was “cliffed up” at the head of the

of hyperphagia, where they eat as much aspossible, and the ripened blueberries onthe alpine slopes had drawn them frommiles around. Sometimes black bears wereseen miles away as an inky black specmoving in the greens, reds and yellows ofSeptember in Alaska. Grizzlies were spot-ted with less frequency and often were onthe move on distant mountainsides.Therewas a sow grizzly and her two-year-oldcubs that we saw almost daily. It was agreat source of amusement for us to watchthe cubs, as they seemed to be always onthe move, feeding on berries or playingamongst themselves.

Hunting and traveling on foot inAlaska’s wilderness can give one a senseof timelessness. The days melded into eachother and I was near the end of my huntwithout pulling the trigger. Steve knew ofa mountain pass that was the point ofleast resistance for bears traveling fromone drainage to the next. He suggestedthat we set up and watch the pass while

valley near a small glacier and appearedto have a general uneasiness about them.Perhaps there was way too much grizzscent in the air for casual grazing on theemerald green hillsides below them.

The days came and went quickly otherthan two tent-bound “weather days.” Rainis a fact of life in Alaska. Its not if it’s goingto rain but for how long and how much.I had brought along a hefty paperbackversion of Theodore Roosevelt’s “HuntingTrips of a Ranchman” & “The WildernessHunter.”I particularly enjoyed the excerptsof some of Roosevelt’s grizzly encountersand hunts. I read aloud and shared themwith Steve. The stories were nostalgic andfitting for the adventure that we had under-taken and reading T R’s work seemed toadd an intangible to the hunt that inspiredus both.

Bear spottings were frequent duringour hunt and it felt as though there wasalways a grizzly or black bear within sight.The bears were in a pre-hibernation state

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hiking between 11,000' and 13,000' abovetimberline. It was a luxury to be able totrain at such elevation on a regular basisand that made a huge difference in mystamina and endurance over the course ofour hunt. In my opinion, there is no substi-tution for actually hiking with a pack onyour back in rough country. Unfortunately,many hunters live in the urban setting ormany miles away from any suitable hikingterrain, so their training must consist ofmiles on the treadmill, stair climber orstationary bike. Needless to say, a hunterwould be foolish not to try and train asvigorously as he can in preparation for anAlaska backcountry wilderness adventure.

Our first day started out like mostAlaska hunts in that we spent a majority ofthe day punching back into the wildernessthrough alder jungles.Alders are a way oflife for hunting in most of Alaska, coveringa majority of the lower slopes of the moun-tains. I grew up hunting deer in tangledoakbrush jungles but the alders are anentirely new challenge; strong as steel, butflexible.Alders choke, grab, and slow youdown and humble even a guy like Steve.You simply just deal with them and keepgoing.

The highlight of the day was a blackbear sow and her triplet cubs grubbingblueberries on the top edge of the alderline. We broke out into the open, set up

larger with every minute. From the rearhe seemed to waddle. From the front hishead looked small compared to his bodyand his ears looked tiny on that barrel-head. This was a really big bear and itexplained why the nervous black bear wasway up on the side of the mountain.

Steve said in a low voice with his headpressed to the spotting scope,“That is ahell of a bear.” I knew it was and could tellby the tone of Steve’s voice that it was asmuch a question to me as a statementabout the bear. I also knew the decisionthat I wanted to make and that was not toend it on the first afternoon on the firstbear. I wanted to savor the wildness ofAlaska and as Steve often says,“put theboots to it”for a few days. I wanted to gazeup on the un-named peaks, walk throughforgotten valleys, skirt glaciers and expe-rience the silence and the solitude of thebush country.

We watched the bear for quite a whileand could see quite plainly that this wasthe apex predator of the valley placidlygrubbing berries but capable of making a meal of any four-legged creature thatmight offer itself up.We nicknamed him“Bad Bob” because his body languageand the black bear’s showed that he wasthe baddest creature in the valley. Heseemed strangely out of place in thatalpine Shangri-la, looking more like somesalmon-eating giant from the coastal rain-forest. It was a treat to just sit and watchhim as he delicately plucked blueberriesand meandered up the benches above thecreekbottom.

We made our way into the next valleythat evening and made camp. The bestavailable camping spot with some coverwas right on a bear trail; not a worn foot-path, but individual depressions in thespongy ground made by eons of travel bythe great bears of Alaska. This was our“bear camp” and would be our home forthe next few days.

On the ridge above camp, we weretreated to one of the most majestic sightsI have ever witnessed in the wild.A greatold billy goat lay bedded upon the craggyridgeline in some charcoal colored slate

camp on the ridgeline and feasted on aMountain House freeze-dried meal. Theclouds had thickened during the afternoonand the highest peaks had become shroud-ed in a veil of mist and fog.A storm wascoming.

That first night was a nice slice ofAlaska’s notorious weather for us. Galeforce winds and driving rain throughmost of the night rocked the tent and leftus both groggy from lack of sleep.After aquick breakfast of green tea and oatmeal,we dropped off the ridge and into a name-less valley with a roaring “creek” in thebottom – a creek as large as a river backin my home state of Colorado.

The previous day’s climb through thealders had shredded my Frogg Togg raingear and luckily, my trusty guide just hap-pened to have a small, stout sewing kit.Steve “reconned”up the valley for bear signwhile I sat on a rock and stitched. Laterthat morning the sun broke out of the graygloom and lit the valley up, highlightingthe vibrant fall color of blueberry bushesand willows.

That afternoon we sat up on the moun-tain watching another black bear feedingin the berries. I was watching this goofy-acting black bear when Steve spotted agrizzly. Through the spotting scope, wewatched him work the open creek bottomat a distance of 700-800 yards and he grew Mike and Steve are all smiles for good reason. A great bear is taken at the end of an epic Alaskan adventure.

Mike Duplan and guide Steve Johnson enjoy a cup of warm Gatorade during their first evening at the“bear camp.” A“packable”down jacket is a “must have”during a September hunt in Alaska’s high country.

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in view of the valley where we previouslycamped and hunted.We had already seentwo bears cross during the last few daysand Steve thought it was reasonable to seeanother.

The trekking poles that Steve insists hishunters carry now showed themselves tobe worth their weight in gold.There was nopack trail out of those mountains.We just“put the boots to it” and kept motoring,trying not to linger too long at rest stops.The descent from the open alpine countrytook us to the alder brush line and wepushed downward to the valley bottom.

More than just a hunt, this adventurewas quickly coming to a close. It was a tripinto country wilder than any I had everexperienced and the journey left me feel-ing richer because of it. The bears werethere in large numbers because of the iso-lation of these valleys and the protectionthat sheer distance in rough country offers.

Returning to Colorado and my moun-tain home, I gazed upon the peaks of theGore Range that now seemed tame incomparison to those I had experienced inAlaska. No longer did grizzlies roam thesemajestic peaks of Colorado’s Gore Range.Although they looked the same, thesemountains were now-a-days missingsomething, and that was a true sense ofuntamed wilderness that only the sight of grizzly tracks in the mud can bring. p

We were making our way down aboulder-strewn hillside above this saddleon the ridgeline when we both spotted agrizzly at the same time.We immediatelyshucked our backpacks and closed thedistance at a run, using a large boulder tohide our direct line approach. The shot wasless than two hundred yards and a rocksolid rest over an appliance-sized boulderallowed me to take a perfect double shoul-der, broadside shot on the bruin. The bearrolled at the sound of the shot but immedi-ately regained his feet and took off uphill.Suddenly, he whirled around into whatseemed like a strangely defiant pose withhis head high and swiveling, looking for hishidden enemy. It was a look that seemedto epitomize the essence of the grizzly andhis wilderness home.Another shot frommy .300 Ultra Mag ended my hunt, but notmy adventure.

We camped that night on a bench a safedistance from the kill in case another bearcame by after dark to claim the carcass of our bear. We now had the additionalweight of a well-fleshed grizzly hide andskull to pack out so Steve took the hideand I took some of the gear from his pack.

Mike Duplan is outfitted for his Alaska wildernessadventure. Synthetic clothes with great“wicking”

properties, a sturdy external frame backpack,Lowa’s Sheephunter boots, gaiters, and the

mandatory trekking poles are all items needed for extended backcountry travel in Alaska.

Steve Johnson is the owner/operator of UltimateAlaskan Adventures. Steve moved to Alaska in 1988after serving in the United States military as a Navycorpsman attached to a Marine Corp Recon unit. Stevehas received extensive training in military survival and orienteering and has extensive backcountry andmountaineering experience.

Steve offers personalized one on one huntingopportunities for the hunter who wants to experiencethe wilds of Alaska. He has a history of impressivesuccess rates for his clients. He has many return huntersand they make up a substantial portion of his businessevery year. That speaks volumes about the qualityservice that Steve provides. Visit Steve’s website foradditional information on his service and to see someof the bears, billies and rams his hunters have takenon his backcountry expeditions.

www.ultimatealaskanadventure.comwww.ultimatealaskanadventure.comSteve Johnson is the owner/operator of Ultimate

Alaskan Adventures. Steve moved to Alaska in 1988after serving in the United States military as a Navycorpsman attached to a Marine Corp Recon unit. Stevehas received extensive training in military survival and orienteering and has extensive backcountry andmountaineering experience.

Steve offers personalized one on one huntingopportunities for the hunter who wants to experiencethe wilds of Alaska. He has a history of impressivesuccess rates for his clients. He has many return huntersand they make up a substantial portion of his businessevery year. That speaks volumes about the qualityservice that Steve provides. Visit Steve’s website foradditional information on his service and to see someof the bears, billies and rams his hunters have takenon his backcountry expeditions.