Prince Of Wales Island

August 3, 2008 -- Our first morning on the island and we were socked in with the typical marine flow. Not really raining, but everything was wet nonetheless. I was anxious to see some alpine country, but Vince didn't want to go (he kept mumbling something about "fishing"). We made him go anyways.

My dad and I had hunted for deer on this peak in 1997 and 2001, and we had a clear memory of a quality deer population, but a vague recollection of our route. We left a logging road and began climbing through the muskeg and timber. We hit some cliffs and Vince was cursing us pretty good ;) We were glad to see there were still some nice bucks in the area. I spotted a nice 4-point from about 300 yards, and snuck to within 50 or 60 yards for some photos.

August 4, 2008 -- Another day, another peak. This time I was by myself, and a little later than the previous day. And the road we'd used to access this peak was too overrun with alders to drive the rental truck up, so I had to quickly come up with an alternate route via a different road, that added a thousand feet of elevation gain.

By the time I got to the high country, most of the deer were already back to their hiding spots for the day. I spotted maybe a dozen does and small bucks throughout the day.

I was standing at the edge of a cliff, when a bald eagle swooped by just 50 feet away. I turned around to see seven or eight eagles circling the peak behind me, and another six sitting on top. They took turns riding the thermals on both sides of the ridge I was on, and my attention drifted from looking for deer, to looking for eagles. On my hike back to the road, I flushed two eagles who were sitting only about 15 feet from me. Definitely the highlight of the day.

August 5, 2008 -- A day off for me while the two old guys fished the Thorne River. The weather was nice but the bugs were THICK. After we'd had enough of the bugs, we went for a drive out to Thorne Bay and Sandy Beach, then found a new place to camp.

August 6, 2008 -- I hadn't been feeling too great the day before, and I woke up feeling worse. Grumpy too ;) Me and the ol man were gonna climb another peak, and despite feeling like crap, off we went. The first 45 minutes were spent in the nastiest clearcut/sticker-bush nightmare I've ever gone through (and I've gone through a lot of them). Then we missed the easy route, and ended up dangling off a cliff holding on to little huckleberry bushes.

Eventually we made it to the top, once again too late to see any deer in this weather. Actually, one nice three-point ran out in the open about a half mile away, coming towards us. I snuck down to cut him off for a photo-shoot, but he didn't show up.