The whine of the diesel pushed us down the rain-soaked asphalt, green moss popping up through the cracks in the shoulder. The trees lining the highway from the airport drip with tendrils of olive and gray, a moss that resembles Hagrid’s beard. The sharp peaks push up straight from the Copper River Delta in a craggy disjointed pattern, extending well into the horizon. After a 10-minute meandering drive from the airport, we turn the corner into the small fishing village of Cordova, Alaska. Its few roads are devoid of street signs or center paint. We pull into the parking lot of the Reluctant Fisherman Inn where we will spend the night prior to departing for the deep Alaskan bush in search of sweeping horns and prehistoric-sized bears.

That evening, we enjoyed a rare burst of sunshine and explored the harbor, which is jammed with small commercial fishing trawlers, their rigging overlapping each slot. Here, a doorway opens into the vast Gulf of Alaska, providing a plethora of food for the residents, both wild and domestic. Several harbor seals bob with curious eyes. A sea otter floats on its back, gnawing on the shellfish tightly gripped in its paws. Local fishermen wash down the decks of newly returned vessels. Soon, boats will be lifted before the long, dark winter arrives.

The small coastal fishing village of Cordova where the adventure began.

The remainder of the afternoon and into the evening was spent at the outfitter’s personal home, finishing some paperwork, and speculating over the adventure to come. Dennis, the owner of Lonesome Dove Outfitters, told us stories of his days after first moving to Cordova in his early 20s as a commercial fisherman. Ice melts into the brown whiskey as he spoke of the hardships and rewards of living the true Alaska life—fishing the commercial season in the summer while guiding and outfitting in the fall and spring. His stories flowed into the night; the adventures becoming more vivid as his gift of storytelling took hold. From glacial river crossings, gear lost in a torrent of rapids at the beginning of a ten-day trek, to bear encounters and flooding high tides. His words embodied the purist definition of a hardcore Alaskan.

The next morning brought more blue skies, teased with wispy clouds far in the distance. Without a breath of wind in the air, it would be an easy flight in the small De Havilland Beaver. But first, at the Cordova Bakery, we fortified with strong coffee, biscuits and gravy, and the best homemade kolache north of the Canadian border. Sitting in the small café before our mid-morning flight, my wife Hannah turned to me and asked what I wanted to get out of this trip. Seemingly an obvious question, I paused at the idea of the adventure, the solitude, the test of physical and mental limits, and the time that would inevitably bring us closer to this wild and rugged place. But then I responded, “I want to come away without a regret to an experience left behind.” Recognizing it was a bit of a twist in words, I wanted to convey that I was not here for the culmination of the trip—flying home with meat, hide, and horn. We had paid an entry fee for one of the most remote and untouched places left in our developed world. It didn’t much matter what happened between the bookends provided I lived in each moment. I wanted to bleed every second from this experience and preserve the solidarity found in this wild place. Following the path back to our B & B, we were eager to finalize packing, change into our waders, and meet the pilot in a few short hours.

At the dock where the Beaver awaited, Mike, our pilot, was meticulously inventorying pre-flight checks, filling the wings with gas, testing his instruments, and carefully distributing our gear throughout the fuselage. Making small talk as he took our loads of gear, he suddenly hesitated and looked a little puzzled as I handed him my strung Wengerd recurve and asked, “Do you plan on hunting one of those big brown bears with this stick?” When I nodded in the affirmative, he shook his head in disbelief, “Better you than me!” As much confidence as I have in my weapon of choice, it did give me pause that a local Alaskan, unfazed by the risks of flying a small personal aircraft as a profession, would be skeptical of my bow’s lethality on a walking giant. Mike makes a living out of staying alive in rough country, yet he would not walk into a bear fight with a pointy stick. Meanwhile, my own greatest trepidation of the trip was stepping onto the floats of the Beaver.

Hannah went first, taking the back seat. I sat next to Mike, fitting on the headset as he revved the engine and pushed off the dock. Motoring across the bay, we picked up speed, and were soon airborne high above the Copper River Delta. Flying to camp, my anxiety lessened as he expertly navigated the peaks and air currents. In the distance, Mike pointed to an island mountain range protruding straight up from the beaches, “Your camp is right on the backside of this ridge. We will be touching down on the Martin River right in front of an old Forest Service cabin, but before we do, let’s give you a little tour of your home for these next couple of weeks.”

Fog covers the Martin and Little Martin Rivers below.

As he banked around the crest of the tallest peak, several white dots were scattered across the high slopes. The white goats positioned themselves atop rock planks overlooking the basins below. We could pick out the groups of nannies and kids in comparison to the mature billies by their elevation on the mountain alone. The bigger-bodied males found isolated perches in the saddles and steep rock shelves, while the younger family groups fed in the grassy basins. Veering off the mountain range, we swept south and east over a braided set of rivers which made up the Little Martin and Martin River systems. Below a set of beaver dams, a pair of bears fished the pooled salmon as they made their spawning run upriver. Big country and big animals can make a man feel small. And that’s exactly why we came here.

One last banking maneuver flew us on a parallel path to the muddy delta and set us up for a landing. With ease and grace, Mike pulled up on the steering column and the floats came to rest on the glassy surface. At the edge of the inlet, two inflatable zodiacs with small 15-hp outboards were moored and two large wall tents stood outside the flood plain. Shortly, two sturdy Midwest loggers on sabbatical (now paying the bills as registered Alaskan big game guides) pulled the plane to the beach and outstretched their hands for introductions. Caleb and Joe, our guides, and Chris, the designated packer, formed an assembly line to shuttle our gear up the soggy embankment. Minutes later, the plane pushed back and shifted its tiller for takeoff. I heard Donnie Vincent mention in a recent interview that the adventure gets bigger as the size of the plane gets smaller. I couldn’t help but think of his voice as the wings of the Beaver tipped a good-bye and disappeared into the autumn sky.

After unloading gear and organizing our packs, we hungrily wolfed down a home cooked meal of lasagna prepared in vacuum sealed packages, sous-vide style, over a Coleman stove. Over dinner we made the decision to capitalize on a blue sky forecast and push up the mountain and chase goats for the first few days of the trip, then chance a sketchier forecast to later chase bears in the valley. Cramming our packs with several days’ worth of dehydrated meals, candy bars, and oatmeal, we pushed into the dense undergrowth toward a steep chute cascading upward to the peaks of the mountain above. The temperate forest here measures annual rainfall in feet rather than inches. Devil’s club and salmonberry ensures that any clothing not reinforced with a Cordura backing is shredded at the seams. Several painstakingly slow hours later we finally broke the brush line onto a slick-as-snot rock field and traversed up to a crook where we’d set a spike camp. Without prior experience in this country but confident in my skills as an athletic outdoorsman, I had almost dismissed the necessity of crampons and an ice axe for a mountain devoid of snow or glacier. Needless to say, those thoughts were quickly dismissed as we sat on the water-soaked moss to pull on the beaver teeth crampons. In a few hundred more vertical feet, we crested onto a saddle with a few potholes holding the only water not entrenched into the ground or held in ice. We set our camp between a few sheltering boulders and sat back to soak in the Alaska sunset over the braided streams in the valley below.

Guide Joe glasses for a billy in the cliffs.

The next morning marked the first hunting day of the trip. After a quick breakfast of oats and coffee, Hannah threw on her pack to head south over the saddle toward a couple of goats we had spotted the day prior, while Joe and I took a steep avalanche chute to the north that would put us in a hanging alpine basin on the backside. Saying a quick goodbye, we split ways and began the hike, immediately donning our crampons for the slick mossy, nearly vertical hillsides of the peaks above. Cresting the notch at the top of the ridge, we belly-crawled the last several yards to avoid any silhouettes in the early morning light. At first, the basin seemed void of our quarry, but we elected to sit back, wait, and take in the scenery through our glass while enjoying some fresh-smoked salmon. After an hour of glassing we decided to move down the ridge to gain a new vantage point. But frustratingly, soon after relinquishing our current cover, a billy materialized on the ridge adjacent, a half mile away.

Sinking into the hillside, we evaluated our options and concluded that with no other immediate opportunities, our best play lay in front of us. With some open country between us and the goat, Joe and I slowly crawled back over the ridge to escape the billy’s view before gingerly beating feet up the ridgeline. Marking the goat’s location, we assumed we were within 500 yards of the bed last occupied. Aware of the precarious ridge ahead, I dropped my pack and began to squirm through the rocks and close the distance. The final approach included several exposed large rocky blocks to navigate. I pulled my bow over my head to free both hands and checked to ensure the goat was still in place; I could see the tips of his horns 50 yards beyond the seemingly insurmountable rock ledges.

Generally, I am rather risk adverse when it comes to getting outside of my skill level in the mountains, yet sometimes I find myself in a position taken by the moment and presumably beyond a point of return. Thinking back, I wasn’t particularly fond of the place I found myself hugging onto—the face of a sheer rock wall that extended down into the valley below. But I was driven to make the final approach and put myself inside an effective range. I wiped the sweat from my brow, calmed my breathing, and considered the last couple of moves across a flat, grassy patch to clear the last boulder. As I took a step, I felt the wind touch the back of my neck for the first time in several hours, quickly followed by the sound of showering rocks and I saw the goat standing, unobstructed, 45-yards away. He looked at me rather surprised and bewildered. The billy had slept while this two-legged predator had nearly stalked within his safety bubble. We briefly stared at one another before he made his hasty exit, easily bounding up a few ledges and out of sight.

A mature billy beds in the midday sun.

That night, we reconvened back at our tents to hear stories of how each other’s days had played out. Hannah, Caleb, and Chris had located several goats but none of the right sex or maturity to target. They had, however, watched several large brown bears feeding and fighting over the salmon down in the valley. We shared our tales of woe and then turned them onto a large billy loafing in the bottom we had spotted from our high perch but in their direction. We elected to take a similar approach the following day; they would head south after the big, lazy billy and we would push farther into the basin after a very large goat that Joe had nicknamed, “King of the Mountain.”

Following our morning commute up the mountain, we didn’t initially put eyes on the king, yet we could only see the windward side of the peak, so we moved across the basin. Granite slabs transitioned into a grassy bottom. A glacial stream trickled from the large ice shelf above. Navigating the ledges, we climbed up and spotted the tufts of white from his long back fur wisping in the wind. He was in a perfect position for an approach from the steep avalanche chute on the adjacent side of the peak. Completely out of sight, I slowly ascended the chute. Finally, and out of cover, I peered over the ledge to find an empty bed. Had a rogue gust taken my scent over the ridge or were the crampons not placed carefully enough to avoid any sound? I moved around the peak to examine any hidden nooks on its face. A lapse in judgement resulted in a small pebble falling down the face to be answered with a larger set of rockfall. The goat shot out from under the ridge, well inside of range but just out of sight. Unlike the previous encounter, he didn’t hesitate this time and quickly bounded away. I was stranded on the peak with the only route off being a walk of shame back toward my pack and guide at the bottom of the chute.

Hannah’s goat skin dries in the sun while the rugged terrain the goats lived in rises precipitously behind.

Consumed with my thoughts of failure, I couldn’t understand why Joe had a smile on his face, “You were inside of 10 yards! Could you not see him?”

“No,” I answered dully but was quickly lifted by his response. In the time I had made the stalk, he received a text on his In-Reach. Hannah had taken the old billy we spotted the day before. It’s hard to explain the feeling of watching someone you deeply care for find success amongst significant challenge. The adrenaline pumped through my chest at the thought of how she must have felt in the final moments of the stalk. Anxious to hear the rest of the story, we quickly forgot our woes and carefully picked our way back toward camp.

As the sun dipped over the horizon, we ascended the final pitch before the treacherous descent back to our tents on the plateau below. It had been a long day; we were both a bit bar sour and foot sore. My mind was trained on each footfall, carefully finding purchase into the hillside as we moved higher. Just ahead of the peak, we softened our pace to peer onto the hidden face. Simultaneously, we spotted a large black mass munching on salmonberries. A big black bear had choked into the chute and purposefully fed in our direction.

Wordlessly, using only a few hand gestures, we sank over the backside of the saddle. I quickly nocked an arrow and moved around to a point above the steep chute head. No sooner had I tucked into some small jack pines when the bear appeared from around the last blind corner. I put pressure on the string before coming to full draw as his front shoulder moved forward, pushing up the slope. In a fluid motion, the arrow pushed off the string, and fatally connected with the bear as he lunged forward to crest the top of the ridge but lost his footing and slid down the scree slope. The suppressed emotion from the shot flowed through my body like a torrent.

The author with a magnificent black bear.

The feeling of success is found through the sweat to get there, and though this was only the start of a 10-day adventure, we had seen our fair share of struggle.

Reaching the bear, I admired his jet-black hair, worn teeth, and frayed claws from years of foraging through an unforgiving country—the same unforgiving country where we now sat, meticulously breaking down the animal into what would be sustenance for our family in the year to come. Step by step the hide was pulled, the fat was trimmed to be rendered and processed, the meat parted and cleaned. From life to death the circle continues.

David and his wife Hannah live in western Colorado with their two young children and five hounds. They are active participants in the traditional archery community, members of Compton Traditional Bowhunters, and David holds a seat on the Colorado Traditional Archers Society board of directors, helping to spread this heritage to the next generation.

Equipment note
On his Alaska adventure the author hunted with Lonesome Dove Outfitters. He used a Wengerd recurve, and Day Six arrows tipped with Cutthroat broadheads and carried his gear in a Kifaru pack.