The weather is worse than ever.
I checked out of the hotel, had a huge breakfast, and came over to the air taxi office. The office has turned into a kind of information center, and all the ram-hunters hang out here.They are all very young, and make me feel rather old. We stare up at the sky, but there isn't much to see.
Chapter II.: Hunting in the Alaskan Arctic
Page 8
The weather is still ugly.
I didn't expect to feel hot up here in the polar regions, but this is ridiculous. The driving rain rattles loudly against the office windows. A sane person would be sitting at home, beside the fire, in this kind of weather. We, however, are preparing to go off to the mountains. According to Google Earth, there is a solid mass of cloud over us. The temperature has dropped to 40F. Weather.com says that, with the wind-chill factor, it will feel like 35.5 F. and over the next few days it will get even colder, and possibly snow. The ram-hunting season begins tomorrow , and we must be in the area by then. If we're lucky, we'll be able to reach Kavik Camp, our base, today.
From there we can fly to the hunting camp tomorrow at the earliest, but by law, we are not allowed to do any hunting on the day of our flight. So, taking the best-case scenario, I won't be able to start hunting before 11th August. I must be in Anchorage by the evening of the 20th, which means I can only hunt until the 19th.
Nine days hunting might be enough.
We have just got some news from Kavik Camp:
Zero Visibility.
With great difficulty, Greg has managed to fly to Bettles, a settlement on the southern side of Brooks Range. He's a long way from us, but still closer than he was yesterday. Now he's stuck again, this time because of the wind.
We don't even attempt to take off.
We wait and hope. There's nothing else to do.