AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2018 - 96

P&E

NEVER AGAIN

Moose meat
mayhem
An unexpected problem over rugged Alaskan terrain
BY MARK OWEN

96 | AOPA PILOT April 2018

At the upper end we had piled up larger
rocks into tiedown cairns for use overnight,
perpendicular to the ridge and facing the prevailing crosswinds. We were using several
other nearby locations as "spike" camps for
our hunters and their assigned guides. These
were all within about a five-mile radius of
the base camp at various elevations below
2,200 feet msl. Each had a short landing and
takeoff track marked with various materials
scrounged from the terrain (skulls, shed antlers, rocks, et cetera). The length of the track
was suitable for a fully loaded Piper Super
Cub or a lightly loaded Maule.
One of my chores was to extract a bull
moose carcass from a spike camp we called
Banana because of the shape of the usable
landing area in the tundra next to the camp.
The track was one way, landing more or
less to the north on one side of a ridge and

SARAH HANSON

THE MIDDLE OF SEPTEMBER is a busy time
for folks involved in hunting big game animals. My younger brother, a registered
guide, was running a guided moose and
caribou hunting operation near the head of
the Squirrel River northeast of Kotzebue,
Alaska. I was working with him as an assistant guide, called upon to do whatever
might be needed, including getting supplies
by air from town, moving meat from place
to place, slogging along on foot with hunters, packing water, and gathering wood.
Our base camp was located 600 feet vertically and a quarter mile horizontally to the
east of a barren, spall-rock-covered ridge.
We used a portion of this ridge as our primary airstrip. Its touchdown elevation was
at about 1,200 feet msl with a rollout uphill
to a point about 25 feet higher and 600 feet
distant, where the ridge rises more steeply.

rolling out uphill to the left to stop abeam
the camp. Takeoffs were from that position, ahead while turning left then finally
off the other side of the ridge. Since the
typical flights to the spike camps were very
short and I wanted maximum cargo capacity, I typically carried seven gallons for the
1968 Piper Super Cub's 160-horsepower
Lycoming. This aircraft had been refurbished to include all sorts of modifications,
including vortex generators, bush wheels,
and the rear stick removed with the stub
covered by a sheet-metal box. This last item
turned out to be of critical interest.
I took off downhill from the base camp,
turning into the wind and taking advantage of the ridge lift. I was soon climbing
up the drainage, with full flaps out while
descending relative to the ground level and
paralleling the terrain on a line to the touchdown point marked with a caribou skull. I
landed on the rising terrain, retracted the
flaps, and maintained sufficient power to
climb the hill to the camp. There, I loaded
the moose meat into the Cub. Typical moose
hinds are about 150 pounds and fronts about
100 pounds; with this being a "light" Cub,
it was feasible to pack in a couple fronts
and a hind in one load. The hard part was
wrestling the chunks into position with the
foot ends pointing aft and the mass of meat
forward, to keep most of the weight as far
forward as possible. I stuck a hind quarter
in first, and then topped it off with a couple front quarters. Adding my 170 pounds
and the five gallons of fuel I had left would
leave me in good shape from a weight and
balance point of view.
Prior to climbing in, I took a few minutes to walk the length of the takeoff track,
looking it over for holes, obstructions,
rocks, and such; reviewing the landmarks
and lines I needed to pay attention to during takeoff; and sniffing the wind for its
variability and speed. It would be six or
seven knots with an easterly, right crosswind component as I came off the ridge.
I crawled into the pilot's seat, strapped

AOPA Pilot Magazine - April 2018

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