As far as I can see, there is no top and no bottom to this central Alaskan mountainside. The clouds are low and solid, and the blowing sleet is almost horizontal. My field of view is about as expansive as it would be inside a living room. This is terrain where you could walk off a cliff in the dark. But the mountain’s 60-degree pitch, and a heavy backpack loaded with a rifle and 10 days’ worth of food and gear, has me moving slowly and carefully.

The hood of my rain jacket is pulled down to shield my eyes. I lift it a bit to check on my hunting partners. My brother Danny, an ecologist with the University of Alaska, is behind me. To my right, I can make out the shape of Chris Flowers, a buddy who flies 737s for Alaska Airlines. When Flowers isn’t working in airplanes, he plays in them. He and his Piper Super Cub live in a private airstrip community in Anchorage. (Imagine a golf-course community except there’s only one fairway, and it’s 100 feet wide and 1,300 feet long.) Two days ago, Flowers shuttled us to a gravel bar along a glacial river about 40 miles into the northern end of the Alaska Range.