Trip Report : Mills Creek/Juneau Creek

[MichaelRyanSD]

Just got back from there, a friend and I hiked about a mile and half in, went up the ridge line east of Juneau Creek (left side if your looking from the road towards the mountains.) We sat at a spot that gave us good visibility of the Juneau Creek draw, Mills Creek Draw and the entire mountain face across the road. We glassed everything, didn't see a single bear. Not to say they aren't out there, but we tried a predatory call and couldn't get anything going.

I'm thinking about trying Hatcher's Pass next weekend.

[wykee5]

For what it is worth, I used to spend some time back in there, and in talking to a miner, he said they never really saw blackies up Mills Creek Drainage. He said they saw more browns than blacks up there. This is a complete guess on my part, but there is very little timber up there, and the blacks like a bit of timber to retreat to if need be. Even when they are way above tree line, there is a treeline for them to be above. In Mills and Juneau, there is really no timber and only alders. I did see a big old black bear in the fall on the north side of the next valley to the north of that ridge you were on, but good luck getting in and out of there. I was down in there once, there is a cool rock glacier at the head of that valley to the north, but it took a bit of doing getting in and out of there.

[MichaelRyanSD]

Yeah the miner said the same thing to us lol. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up who might think about going there. It's probably not worth it, I'm not a hunting expert, so don't take it as advice, but it just seems to me like there wasn't any life back there in the two draws. Here's a pic of one of our views. Still had a great time being outdoors even though we didn't find anything. I wish I knew of some resources or some things to focus on to improve on hunting. I feel like I'm just kind of going out there aimlessly without really honing any skills since I don't know what to improve upon. I'm in the infantry so we literally used infantry tactics in our thought process when thinking about where to setup "camp". We figured being on the ridge line giving us a view in all directions was our best bet.

I read something I've been trying to focus on from AGL4Life about not going out to be hunters but to be outdoors-men. I think when you think like that, it makes trips like the one we had yesterday more enjoyable since we didn't even see a bear.