by David Stalling

I awoke a few times during the night and early in the morning from the sounds of my tent rattling from the strong winds. I was glad to have some shelter from it. Dave, on the other hand, had decided to just throw his sleeping bag out under the stars and managed to sleep well. By the time I got up he was already working his way around the lake catching fish. After a breakfast of oatmeal and coffee, we took a break atop a large, rocky outcrop with a spectacular view of the Upper Truckee watershed, looking north toward the town of South Lake Tahoe and the large, bright blue waters of Lake Tahoe itself. As far as I could see there was nothing but forests, lakes, rock and snow.
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by Darren Dorris

The day after the hunt, I boarded the Fairweather, a high-speed catamaran run by the Alaska Marine Highway system (AMH) and one of the fastest in its fleet. In a scant four hours, I would travel the 150-plus miles to Juneau. Getting around the Tongass is very unique, with 656,000-plus square miles of islands and water, travelers must go either by air or boat. The AMH makes traveling this region simpler with stops in all the major ports.

While all ferries offer vehicle and passenger space, depending on the length of the trip they offer cabins, restaurants, game rooms and more. The ride from Petersburg to Juneau was filled with the stunning scenes of the famed inside passage. As tired as I was from the previous day’s hunt, the sheer beauty of the glaciers, icebergs, snow capped mountains and whales made it hard to even blink for fear of missing an instant, let alone some sleep.

Juneau is Alaska’s state capital, yet not a single road connects this city to the rest of Alaskan mainland. The only ways in and out are by plane or water, and in this city most visitors arrive by water.... [ Read Full Post ]

by Hal Herring

Hansen Meadows is about five miles away. We’re on a fairly level trail that skirts the toe of mountains that wall the north side of the valley. Gary Peters is leading on his mule, pointing out some of their hunting country as we travel. The creek is far away, but we can hear it sometimes through the harsh jumble of deadfall and obstacle course of thimbleberry, fireweed and young lodgepole.

It’s been 100 years since the 1911 fires, and a glance at the mountains all around shows the lodgepoles that were born in 1911. They’re now dying from old age and beetle infestations. A lodgepole is a tree that it truly native to the Western mountains. It has adapted to the one constant of the Western mountains: fire. That’s because lodgepole cones are serotinous, meaning they will only release their seeds and start new trees after being burned. A big black bear spooks out of a patch of elderberry on the hillside and glides downhill into the bottomland tangles, moving with a grace that seems impossible for its size.

We bail off the trail as the country suddenly opens, ride across a wide sucking bog of horsetail... [ Read Full Post ]

by Hal Herring

Gary Peters, a Montana outfitter, has been riding these trails in Clearwater country since 1989. He breeds, trains and maintains a string of some of the best hunting and packing mules in the West. Peters has the calm, soft-spoken demeanor that is the trademark of a true stockman—of a person who spent most of his life in the woods taking on the responsibility for caring for his guides, clients, and string when they’re far from any kind of help. It’s a burden that he seems to bear without much trouble. He and his crew have weathered some major adventures in Kelly Creek: from blizzards and aggressive bears to human mishaps and the shear challenge of making a living doing what they love. Some of Peters’ toughest times came with the recovery—some would call it an “explosion”—of wolves in Clearwater country. 

“There were packs here with 20 wolves in them,” says Peters, with no trace of the fury that is often the norm when Idaho elk hunters discuss the wolf issue. “We’d come down the trail, and the snow would just be churned up with wolf tracks.” Elk numbers and hunter success plummeted during those years. The... [ Read Full Post ]

by Kirk Deeter

On our third and final day of the adventure, we traveled far downstream from Meeker, past the trophy trout waters and into the epicenter of the latest drilling operations in the Mesa Verde Play in the northern basin of Piceance Creek. We brought along Scott Warner, an avid elk and mule deer hunter from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, who has hunted this specific area (Unit 22) for the past 15 years.

While this unit has traditionally been one of the hottest mule deer spots in the state (it is home to one of the largest migrating mule deer herds in America), Warner said he has seen decreased production as drilling operations have ramped up. As we stood atop the Cathedral Bluffs, a giant earth formation that towers over the creeks and draws that feed the White, Warner said: “You used to get on top of the mesa at night, and look east and see nothing but dark silhouettes of the rocks, and stars above. And now you see the twinkles of dozens of gas wells. The deer hunting is not nearly what it was--not even close.”
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by Kirk Deeter

On day one of our Best Wild Places adventure in the White River drainage of Colorado, Aaron Kindle, Chris Herrman and I went trout fishing on the upper-middle section of the main stem of the White River. This middle section meanders through a valley of expansive ranches. Indeed, private landowners control much of this water, and access is restricted. However, the Colorado Division of Wildlife has secured a number of quality easements, and there are state wildlife areas that afford access to quality trout water as well.

We pulled off by a bridge, slipped on our wades and hiked down to the river where we immediately noticed a number of small trout sipping dry flies in the shade of the bridge. The White runs clear and clean throughout the late summer and fall, and prolific hatches of mayflies, as well as hordes of grasshoppers are found in the tall brush along the bank.
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