Horseback Adventures, Alaska Big Game Hunting, Life in the Bush by Alaska Chick

Pioneer Outfitters Guide Trainee, "Ruger" Finishes Phase 1 Training

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~We had a great end to our 2011 Fall Hunting Season. Wonderful trophies, terrific clients and hunters and simply amazing weather!

“Ruger,” a Pioneer Outfitters trainee has completed (OUTSTANDINGLY) Phase 1 of Pioneer Outfitters Survival & Guide Training and will be leaving us for awhile... as soon as the weather clears! “Ruger” has been here since January working towards his Alaska Big Game Guide License.

Gun-Boy, as I dubbed him this fall, slipped into Chisana and Pioneer Outfitters as if he had always been a part of us. Patience, intuitiveness, kindness and compassion come to mind first, thinking of how I would describe him to a stranger.

I sat down this morning with him and asked him some questions I thought maybe you would, if you could. I’ll share the answers with you now.

~Where are you from?
Idaho

~How did you decide to come to Pioneer Outfitters?
Mitch and Austin Akinson from Far West Hunting in Arizona, first introduced me. I’ve wanted to be a guide and eventually an Outfitters on my own, as long as I can recall. I wanted someplace that I could learn as much as possible while doing what it is we do, as often as possible, if not full time. My biggest requirement was that whoever I went with and where I went needed to be a horse operators or based on horseback hunting trips.

~Was there a deciding factor? (If there was more than one choice.)
Yes, the Alaska Guide Board members I spoke with about Pioneer Outfitters said it is a great place to learn the trade and would be a great start.
~What did you think of your first Alaska winter?
It was what I expected, lots of cold with little amounts of snow compared to what I was used to. Working at -40* to -60* below zero only requires a little more caution, preparation and a few more layers.

~Do you still want to be an Alaska Guide?
Yes.

~Can you give me three favorite memories or days?
(First off, I hate picking favorites of anything!) The day Terry, Amber, Zach and I went out to check and feed horses and found giant ice caves with channel walls easily 12-15 feet of ice. You just can’t describe how cool that was.
When my parents came out this summer to Chisana and Amber and I took them up to the top of Red Hill.
Taking a client, Wally, to Fairbanks to catch his plane because 40-Mile decided they weren’t going to come to get him. We drove all night long, that was fun, Wally’s a great guy.

~Did you have a favorite Hunt? (yeah, yeah, pick one)
Easily said...The last hunt. Couldn’t have asked for anything better, except for the fact that I cut my eye when Wally got his bear and I went around the rest of the week hunting moose while looking like Rooster Cogburn in the movie True Grit. (or like Amber said, a pirate~ but I haven’t ever seen a pirate wear a cowboy hat and carry a 45 Colt, just sayin’.)

~What three things made the biggest impression on you?
Time means absolutely nothing out here.
 You can never cut enough firewood.
 The hunter’s attitude makes all the difference.

~What did you learn, that really surprised you?
It is a waste of time to hunt sheep before noon.
~What song sums up this chapter of your life?
Besides AC/DC ‘s song “Back In Black”, I would have to go with Brad Paisley’s  “Time Well Wasted.”

~Any advice for Phase 1 trainees about to start?
Yes.
In camp, sleep with your boots on because the horses will screw around and they will leave.
Don’t bother asking “What’s the plan?” That is the stupidest question to ask here.

I was laughing uncontrollably by the end of my impromptu interview. Reading back over them has convinced me that I need to start making videos to share! The dry humor and irony and absolute fact of “Ruger’s” answers was priceless.

He’ll be back. I believe in him completely. I also know that “Ruger” knows there is absolutely no place better to get him prepared for all he dreams of. No place better to learn and experience it all.

I shared with you from the field, the heroic strength of character “Ruger” showed the night we spent descending the rocky face of the mountain, in my post, Hell and Terror or an Adventure of a Lifetime with Alaska Chick. The faith and trust emanating from his presence.

“Ruger” will return in 2012 to finish with Phase 2 of Pioneer Outfitters Survival & Guide Training and will someday be a Professional Guide helping and leading people safely to hunt the wilderness with horses.

I also have no doubt at all I will be following him up the mountain one day to take pictures of his progress and clients. I will always be proud to call “Ruger” friend and “Brother” as we were all meant to be, after all.

I am, Alaska Chick.

“As you look, really look, and find no words; feeling both, your heart healing and filling to an inner bursting point and feeling that your soul has been laid open to the breeze and wind like a raw wound. This takes you beyond the physical, past the mental; this is the spiritual element. This is Chisana.”

My name is Amber-Lee Dibble and I am the Manager at Pioneer Outfitters. We are located in the Wrangell St. Elias National Park & Preserve, our nation’s largest, most unexplored, unexploited and untouched National Park.

I am Mom, the Manager and the lead Guide of the Extreme Pro Team Guides. Born a Capricorn 1, Week of the Ruler, on the Day of The Indomitable One.

Pioneer Outfitters has been taking people into the wilderness of Alaska on horseback for Spiritual, Pleasure, Gold Panning, Glacier Exploring and Historic Trail Pack Trips, as well as Big Game Hunting and Survival & Guide Training since 1924. We, our family and our horses have always lived here year-round. As we make our life, we make our “living.”