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Lena overlooking a little lake by Windy Creek Road

Looking up toward the pass we had to go through to start our second day hiking.

Final load packed up. I strapped the hind quarters off either side of my bike's rear tire rack, loaded the burger/rib bag and antlers in my pack, and had an easy ride out to the car without Lena having to carry anything or get messy caribou on her gear.

Denali Highway back in view after hiking 19 miles.

Caribou backbone. The sawed-off ribs on this partial caribou skeleton mean it was killed by a hunter. Given the location, it might be my bull from last year. It's nice to see how quickly the tundra animals made use of everything that remained.

Where are chest waders when you need them?

First two quarters bagged up. I normally cut off the basically meatless lower parts of the legs before bagging up the meat, but in this case I kept them for carrying convenience -- an extremely good decision in retrospect.

Carrying a heavy load.

Beginning of Alpine Creek. Alpine Creek starts at the lake outlet in the bottom of this picture

Crossing a tributary of Windy Creek. My waterproof leather boots & Kuiu gaiters kept my feet dry here, but I had less luck in the thigh-deep holes of whitewater in rain-swollen Windy Creek itself a couple hours later.