Ward M. Clark
New member
Remember that old segment in Outdoor Life? I always loved that, and I was thinking it might be fun to start a thread up here for "It happened to me" stories. Since I'm supposedly some kind of literary type myself, I'll start with one of my own:
***
The day started awful. Things got worse after that.
It was a frigid morning when we left my friend’s cabin at five in the morning, and a nasty, driving, wet snow/rain mixture was spitting from the starless, leaden sky.
During the half-hour drive out to Salt Creek, my hunting partner Karl and I speculated on the wisdom of climbing to the top of the plateau we intended to hunt. But drive out there we did, and when we dismounted from Karl’s truck, the weather had gotten worse.
“I’ll stay to the west of that big outcrop,” I told Karl, pointing at a dimly seen stump of red shale, “And you stay to the east. Meet back at the truck by four?”
“Okay,” Karl said.
“This weather sucks,” I grumbled. I was already soaked through.
“At least it’ll be quiet.”
I had a cow tag and Karl a bull tag. Karl went off into the heavy timber in search of a six-by-six, while I climbed to the top of the plateau to find a good place to glass for a freezer-filler. Every scrub oak, every juniper I bumped sent a shower of wet snow down the back of my neck with uncanny accuracy; Nature seemed full of malign intent this morning.
After a half-hours struggle I finally gained a vantage point. Glassing wasn’t very productive, but once in a while the sleet would slack off long enough for me to see a mile or so. During one of those lulls I was able to finally get a look into the high meadows on the mountainside on the other side of the Salt Creek drainage, and sure enough…
“Oh, crap,” I whispered to my private self, alone as I was on a lifeless, frigid, dripping mountainside.
Across the drainage was a cow herd, maybe twenty elk, grazing contentedly a mile or so away.
There was nothing else for it; my own stubbornness drove me on. I picked my way carefully down the mountain, down to Salt Creek. The road we had driven in on paralleled the creek, and I’d come out maybe a half-mile from the truck. I still had to find a way across Salt Creek.
The only opportunity to cross was on a beaver dam that looked to have been built sometime during the Eisenhower Administration by some particularly careless beavers. I told myself, “Myself, if I fall into that water, I’ll die of hypothermia before I can get back to the truck.”
I looked at the water, swirling dark and frigid like liquid onyx, chunks of ice bobbing carelessly in the current. Overhead the sodden spruces nodded at me, go on, go on.
I stepped out on the beaver dam. The sticks shifted slightly under my weight; my entire digestive tract tightened reflexively. Trying with all my mental might to levitate most of my weight off the dam, I slowly picked my way across. When I gained the far bank, I let go the breath I’d been holding, blowing snow off the trees for a good twenty yards. Now all I had to do was to hike carefully up through a half-mile or so of dark timber to where the elk were, in that sodden meadow, on the other side of the wet and dripping trees.
The sleet picked up a little as I climbed, but the spruces protected me from some of it. I took my time climbing over down trees and scrambling through a few ancient piles of slashing left by malicious loggers. After an interminable time, I reached the edge of the meadow. I crept stealthily, oh so stealthily; I crept like smoke on the wind to the edge of the frigid meadow, and peeked carefully around the bole of a big spruce.
No elk.
I stuck my head out a little further, scanned from one end of the meadow to the other.
No elk.
I fumbled with cold-numbed fingers for my binoculars, and carefully glassed the treeline all about.
No elk.
I double-checked the wind; in my face, as it had been during the whole freezing, soaking, miserable stalk. I glassed the treeline again.
No elk.
Finally I walked out into the meadow, slushed my way through the accumulating sleet and slush to the spot I’d seen the elk feeding.
No tracks. The sleet/slush/rain/wrath of God that was falling that morning had eliminated every trace.
Well, there was nothing else to do, so I sloshed back down through the spruces, through the slashpiles, over the down trees, to the beaver dam. Crossing carefully over the dam with my heart in my throat, I came at last to the road.
“Screw this,” I thought, and slogged on back up to Karl’s truck, to find him asleep in the warm truck cab.
I opened the door and gently shook Karl awake, only breaking one of his teeth and loosening three fillings in the process. “Oh, you’re back,” he belabored the obvious. “See anything?”
I filled him in on the entire miserable morning.
“Oh, you went after them clear up there? You should have been up where I was. I walked right into a cow herd. I had three of them standing within fifty feet of me.”
I fought down the urge to do him an injury. “Let’s go back to the cabin and dry out.”
Later, when we went out again for the afternoon hunt, the rain/sleet/slush/snow had stopped, and while the sky was still overcast, the clouds had brightened some. With our hunting togs dried out, we were actually quite comfortable.
It seemed kind of dull, somehow.
<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 09-02-2003 18:43: Message edited by: Ward M. Clark ]</font>
***
The day started awful. Things got worse after that.
It was a frigid morning when we left my friend’s cabin at five in the morning, and a nasty, driving, wet snow/rain mixture was spitting from the starless, leaden sky.
During the half-hour drive out to Salt Creek, my hunting partner Karl and I speculated on the wisdom of climbing to the top of the plateau we intended to hunt. But drive out there we did, and when we dismounted from Karl’s truck, the weather had gotten worse.
“I’ll stay to the west of that big outcrop,” I told Karl, pointing at a dimly seen stump of red shale, “And you stay to the east. Meet back at the truck by four?”
“Okay,” Karl said.
“This weather sucks,” I grumbled. I was already soaked through.
“At least it’ll be quiet.”
I had a cow tag and Karl a bull tag. Karl went off into the heavy timber in search of a six-by-six, while I climbed to the top of the plateau to find a good place to glass for a freezer-filler. Every scrub oak, every juniper I bumped sent a shower of wet snow down the back of my neck with uncanny accuracy; Nature seemed full of malign intent this morning.
After a half-hours struggle I finally gained a vantage point. Glassing wasn’t very productive, but once in a while the sleet would slack off long enough for me to see a mile or so. During one of those lulls I was able to finally get a look into the high meadows on the mountainside on the other side of the Salt Creek drainage, and sure enough…
“Oh, crap,” I whispered to my private self, alone as I was on a lifeless, frigid, dripping mountainside.
Across the drainage was a cow herd, maybe twenty elk, grazing contentedly a mile or so away.
There was nothing else for it; my own stubbornness drove me on. I picked my way carefully down the mountain, down to Salt Creek. The road we had driven in on paralleled the creek, and I’d come out maybe a half-mile from the truck. I still had to find a way across Salt Creek.
The only opportunity to cross was on a beaver dam that looked to have been built sometime during the Eisenhower Administration by some particularly careless beavers. I told myself, “Myself, if I fall into that water, I’ll die of hypothermia before I can get back to the truck.”
I looked at the water, swirling dark and frigid like liquid onyx, chunks of ice bobbing carelessly in the current. Overhead the sodden spruces nodded at me, go on, go on.
I stepped out on the beaver dam. The sticks shifted slightly under my weight; my entire digestive tract tightened reflexively. Trying with all my mental might to levitate most of my weight off the dam, I slowly picked my way across. When I gained the far bank, I let go the breath I’d been holding, blowing snow off the trees for a good twenty yards. Now all I had to do was to hike carefully up through a half-mile or so of dark timber to where the elk were, in that sodden meadow, on the other side of the wet and dripping trees.
The sleet picked up a little as I climbed, but the spruces protected me from some of it. I took my time climbing over down trees and scrambling through a few ancient piles of slashing left by malicious loggers. After an interminable time, I reached the edge of the meadow. I crept stealthily, oh so stealthily; I crept like smoke on the wind to the edge of the frigid meadow, and peeked carefully around the bole of a big spruce.
No elk.
I stuck my head out a little further, scanned from one end of the meadow to the other.
No elk.
I fumbled with cold-numbed fingers for my binoculars, and carefully glassed the treeline all about.
No elk.
I double-checked the wind; in my face, as it had been during the whole freezing, soaking, miserable stalk. I glassed the treeline again.
No elk.
Finally I walked out into the meadow, slushed my way through the accumulating sleet and slush to the spot I’d seen the elk feeding.
No tracks. The sleet/slush/rain/wrath of God that was falling that morning had eliminated every trace.
Well, there was nothing else to do, so I sloshed back down through the spruces, through the slashpiles, over the down trees, to the beaver dam. Crossing carefully over the dam with my heart in my throat, I came at last to the road.
“Screw this,” I thought, and slogged on back up to Karl’s truck, to find him asleep in the warm truck cab.
I opened the door and gently shook Karl awake, only breaking one of his teeth and loosening three fillings in the process. “Oh, you’re back,” he belabored the obvious. “See anything?”
I filled him in on the entire miserable morning.
“Oh, you went after them clear up there? You should have been up where I was. I walked right into a cow herd. I had three of them standing within fifty feet of me.”
I fought down the urge to do him an injury. “Let’s go back to the cabin and dry out.”
Later, when we went out again for the afternoon hunt, the rain/sleet/slush/snow had stopped, and while the sky was still overcast, the clouds had brightened some. With our hunting togs dried out, we were actually quite comfortable.
It seemed kind of dull, somehow.
<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 09-02-2003 18:43: Message edited by: Ward M. Clark ]</font>
