End of Elk Season
Last Tuesday I got a call from Butch. He was headed back into our elk hunting area and was going to hunt it solo until the end of the season. His quote was, "If you have any FS friends in the area, could you have them swing in and see if I'm still alive?" Shoot. That's when I decided I was going to go and meet up with him on Friday afternoon and come out Sunday.
I DID have a fella drive through his camp on Thursday and he came back in with this report, "Well Tom, it looks like he JUST left camp at about 11:00, so he's still alive. I chunked up his fire, felt the coffeepot and then went through his coolers. Looks like he only has a half case of beer, a couple hotdogs, and some leftover potato salad. You need to go to the store. Oh, and it looks like he only has enough wood for another day, take your saw."
Alright.
Well, I got everything loaded up by 12:00 on Friday and was on my way. On the two hour trip up there, I started to notice a lot of ice in the mud puddles. Hmmm, gonna be cold. And sure enough, it was frigid...upper 20s to lower 30s at night and getting up to maybe into the lower 50s in the afternoon. It was supposed to rain Friday night, so we set up a tarp and unfortunately broke the glass on the lantern in the process.
Saturday we were planning on hunting, but Butch's knee was still bugging him and I wasn't very motivated. SO, we went and checked out some new country by driving. Back at camp, bummed around, and called it a night.
Sunday we leisurely packed up camp and both left at 12:00 on the dot. Butch headed down the paved route, and I took the dirt roads. At about two miles from camp a fella came RACING around a corner, coming at me. I didn't have time to even flip him off before I had to put the truck in the ditch...and I saw the sharp rock coming. Nothing I could do about it, and sure enough, about 40 yards down the road there was a loud rattling noise coming from the bed. I moved some stuff around and happened to glance at the passenger side rear tire...flatter than flat! DAMMIT! For the second time this year I was changing a flat tire with 45 miles of dirt road in front of me. Let's just say I was super-cautious coming out so as not to blow another one. I had a FS radio with me, so I had a backup plan, but I really didn't want to make THAT call. Oh, and on the entire way out, I only saw ONE OTHER RIG. Would have been a cold night. But then it started raining after about an hour...so it would've been a cold WET night. And with snow lingering on Leiberg Peak, I figured it was going to snow. All told it took me about 3.5 hours to make a 2 hour trip...but that included going really slow and changing the tire. By the time I got home my quads were sore from just being tensed up for that long.
And I'm not sure I mentioned it last time, but I wanted to get another spare to mount in the bed. Well, I never did that, but it looks like it'll happen now. The only problem is having to go get a flat fixed and buy a new tire and rim...all before the first predicted snow of the year (that's supposed to hit the valleys Thursday.) *sigh* It's going to be BUSY in there and likely take a lot of waiting.
Today is the last day of elk season, so now it's time to switch gears to deer. But I'm pretty excited about that, especially with the snow starting to move in. Ooh, and the regulations changed this year...I have a month to try and shoot either a doe or a buck. I'm pretty confident we'll have some venison this year.
I DID have a fella drive through his camp on Thursday and he came back in with this report, "Well Tom, it looks like he JUST left camp at about 11:00, so he's still alive. I chunked up his fire, felt the coffeepot and then went through his coolers. Looks like he only has a half case of beer, a couple hotdogs, and some leftover potato salad. You need to go to the store. Oh, and it looks like he only has enough wood for another day, take your saw."
Alright.
Well, I got everything loaded up by 12:00 on Friday and was on my way. On the two hour trip up there, I started to notice a lot of ice in the mud puddles. Hmmm, gonna be cold. And sure enough, it was frigid...upper 20s to lower 30s at night and getting up to maybe into the lower 50s in the afternoon. It was supposed to rain Friday night, so we set up a tarp and unfortunately broke the glass on the lantern in the process.
Saturday we were planning on hunting, but Butch's knee was still bugging him and I wasn't very motivated. SO, we went and checked out some new country by driving. Back at camp, bummed around, and called it a night.
Sunday we leisurely packed up camp and both left at 12:00 on the dot. Butch headed down the paved route, and I took the dirt roads. At about two miles from camp a fella came RACING around a corner, coming at me. I didn't have time to even flip him off before I had to put the truck in the ditch...and I saw the sharp rock coming. Nothing I could do about it, and sure enough, about 40 yards down the road there was a loud rattling noise coming from the bed. I moved some stuff around and happened to glance at the passenger side rear tire...flatter than flat! DAMMIT! For the second time this year I was changing a flat tire with 45 miles of dirt road in front of me. Let's just say I was super-cautious coming out so as not to blow another one. I had a FS radio with me, so I had a backup plan, but I really didn't want to make THAT call. Oh, and on the entire way out, I only saw ONE OTHER RIG. Would have been a cold night. But then it started raining after about an hour...so it would've been a cold WET night. And with snow lingering on Leiberg Peak, I figured it was going to snow. All told it took me about 3.5 hours to make a 2 hour trip...but that included going really slow and changing the tire. By the time I got home my quads were sore from just being tensed up for that long.
And I'm not sure I mentioned it last time, but I wanted to get another spare to mount in the bed. Well, I never did that, but it looks like it'll happen now. The only problem is having to go get a flat fixed and buy a new tire and rim...all before the first predicted snow of the year (that's supposed to hit the valleys Thursday.) *sigh* It's going to be BUSY in there and likely take a lot of waiting.
Today is the last day of elk season, so now it's time to switch gears to deer. But I'm pretty excited about that, especially with the snow starting to move in. Ooh, and the regulations changed this year...I have a month to try and shoot either a doe or a buck. I'm pretty confident we'll have some venison this year.
posted by geotracker12 at 11:33 AM
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