A Perfect Last Day

Today was our last full day on the Kongakut and it was fabulous! Sue came to my tent at about 7:30 this morning to say there were hundreds of caribou streaming out of the hills and swimming the river upstream from our camp. Then we looked at the hills behind us and hundreds more were moving past... they just kept coming and coming.

The day was gorgeous, with a nice breeze to keep the mosquitos inactive. The wildflowers are beautiful and abundant, and we enjoyed the sweet scent of the lupines as we walked among their purple blooms.
We hiked for hours over several peaks and finally reached a place where we could see the Beaufort Sea, a part of the Arctic Ocean. Ramona checked her GPS and told us that our elevation gain hiking to this peak was 1,500 feet. We looked out over the coastal plains and saw the blue of the water and the white ice. The view of 'the end of the world' was magnificent, breathtaking, and deeply moving.

We kept seeing big herds of caribou on the move... running over the hills and crossing the Kongakut. Last month most of the females arrived at the calving grounds on the coastal plains. There are about 120,000 caribou in the Porcupine herd and they make this journey from Canada every year - several hundred miles. The vegetation on the plains is very nutritious for pregnant and lactating caribou cows and their calves, and the wide open space is safer for calving because there are fewer predators than in the mountains.

It's mostly the bull caribou arriving now, though we saw several females with young calves. They must have had to stop on the way to give birth before reaching the plains.

Today was a gift - being able to witness this awesome spectacle of thousands of migrating caribou!