We ate a quick breakfast and hit the hill hard. It helped that both of us were in decent shape since the climb up was steep. By noon we had reached the plateau and began to see more caribou. The calving was to supposed to have begun two days ago yet the cows we saw were alone.

Video of this scene and a panoramic of our high plateau camp (640k)

It was windy and quite cold at the spike camp as we headed out to glass a distant ridge. On our way down the ridge we spotted a nice full-curl ram heading toward us. We decided to stalk the ram for pictures and have some fun with him. The mature ram was within 30 yards of us before we abandoned the stalk and continued on our way. I've never hunted sheep but I can tell you that once spooked, sheep run for miles.

We stayed up most of the night glassing the surrounding country but we saw no bears. I did spot our first calf that was born to a cow below camp and felt a sense of protection over this little caribou. With the wolf sign we were seeing I wondered how long this lone calf would last on the tundra.

Tomorrow we're heading back to the river. Despite the vast country, there was considerable snow up here so if the bears were here they would be leaving tracks. We found no tracks and no sign. The plan is to get up early, hunt our way along the ridge system, then drop down to our camp and finish out our hunt at the river.