Moose Hunt

Saturday, October 01, 2005
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Every year there is a lottery to allow a limited number of hunters a chance to hunt moose in the valley across from our home. Our friend Tietz won the lottery this year and managed to kill himself a moose. Unfortunately he was 3 miles out and needed assistance packing this beast home. Heather and I being naive to the process gladly volunteered to help.

The hike out was great. I had never hiked over the mountain in front our home before. Once you reach the pass, you have a view down Ship Creek Valley to Anchorage below. Fall was nearly over, but the leaves were still on the trees and the blue-berries were better than I have found anywhere. I managed to pick a small bag despite eating most of what I picked.

It only took us about an hour to meet Tietz at the kill; several hours later we were packing out our share of the meat. We only had one hour of daylight left and we hadn't brought any flashlights with us. It took us over 3 hours to hike the 3 miles back up the mountain and down to our car, to top it off...the last hour it started to rain. I was so exhausted, there was no way I could go back and help with any more of the animal. I dropped my pack off in the back of Tietz's truck and went home.

Later Tietz told me a that my pack weighed in at about 90 lbs. I believe that is the most I will ever carried. All in all, there was a bit less than 500 pounds of meat. Everyone who hiked out the meat will be sharing the meat...so looks like we will have plenty of moose burgers over the winter.

I posted a few pics if you want to see the gore...
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