We went out with friends and brought the gun along since Moose, Bear, Caribou and Wolf hunting was open. There are some nice moose, black bear, grizzly bear, caribou and wolves out there if you have the patience and time to hunt them. You can road hunt some of them but the best hunting is to use the ATV/UTV to get back in there and then take a walk and bring the spotting scope. If you wait you can see the whole Alaska animal kingdom go bye, it is truly amazing.
We headed out with some friends to find some adventure, did some mudding, some rock climbing, fossil hunting, and yep a little pushing of the ATV's. We went on some trails that I would NEVER recommend to a novice and would only recommend to some experienced ATV'ers and make sure you have a buddy. You may need a push or a pull at times. There are some great trails for kids and adults alike it just depends on what kind of ATVing you want to do. If you like mud and creek crossings and like to ride the ridge lines this is definitely the place for you. It was myself, my husband and a couple of his buddies, and let me tell you ladies, don't ever let a man tell you it is too difficult, it just depends on your determination. If your a mud loving woman, who is tough as nails then you will be fine. If you think shopping at the mall and getting a pedi is a rough day then you had best just stay back at camp lol.
So off we went, I think the guys were rather impressed that I didn't wimp out and even though I needed a little nudge every now and then, I didn't give up and kept up with them. The only reason I needed help was because I am on a 2000 Arctic Cat and the clearance is not nearly as high as their 2007 Arctic Cat, 2010 Polaris and even the 2003 Suzuki King Quad. I have the sport suspension so the ride is softer but it also makes me drag bottom in some of the more rutted out areas.
We explored an old mining site, saw some pretty interesting relics of the past and just some beautiful scenery. You can find some pretty neat fossils in some of the areas, which always manages to amaze me that life must have been so different here in Alaska 1000's of years ago.
We went about 18 miles and that is when we ran into a minor problem or major problem depending on how you look at it. We had stopped at the top of a hill over looking a valley deciding which trail to choose, we picked one and headed out. About half way into the trail I started to notice this little line in the dirt. I started looking ahead and noticed some liquid coming out of the 2007 Arctic Cat, it took me a few minutes to realize "holy crap" that is OIL, not water !! We caught up to our buddy, he shut off the machine and then WHAM all the oil came out, NOT GOOD! We discovered that he lost his oil plug. After cleaning up the oil from the ground with a portable spill kit, we thought, hmmm I wonder if we can find that plug. So as you could imagine it would be like looking for a needle in a hay stack, but with a little luck we found it. We discovered that the threads on the oil pan itself was stripped and we were amazed that it hadn't come out sooner. So we let the machine cool down and with a little suggestion from the "woman" of the group we used a zip lock bag, wrapped it around the plug and put the plug back in there and it held tight. We didn't have enough oil on us so we had to tow our buddy back. Now here is the funny part.... earlier in the adventure the Arctic Cat owners were joking we better bring a tow strap with a Polaris in the party as we would probably have to tow him home. So the jokes on us, the Arctic Cat was pulled 18 miles home through hills, valleys, streams and mud by, yep the Polaris lol. Here are some pictures from the trip. Even with the minor incident we still had a good time.
Hint, click on the pictures they are much better in a larger view. :o)
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