Into the whiled: Hike

Day 3, Monday Oct. 25th

This morning, when I was forced out of my nice warm sleeping bag by my insistent bladder, the ground was not nearly as mushy as it had been before. It wasn't that it had dried out... it had frozen solid. There was snow falling gently, the way it does in movies whenever a Christmas miracle is about to happen. The wind, pushing the soft puffs of frosty beauty around in the air like tiny dancing fairies..... or some analogy much more manly. As if fresh snow wasn't enough, we're having bacon with breakfast today. Oh joy, oh rapture. That wasn't meant to sound sarcastic.

This is the day we decided it was time to get a toilet built. There is a group of pine trees not far from camp (but far enough that we shouldn't be able to smell the toilet while cooking or eating meals) that we've decided will make the perfect support for our ghetto outhouse (and here you thought regular outhouses were ghetto). Uncle Pat is the primary engineer on this job, and it's a good working environment where the rest of us feel free to make suggestions as we see fit. We cut some pine saplings, 2 to 3 inches across generally, to be the beams the toilet seat would sit on, and screwed them at what seemed a comfortable height onto the trunks of the main trees. Don't worry, hippies, we didn't hurt the environment, we only cut small trees that were growing so close to larger trees that they would either die slowly from lack of water and sunlight, or grow taller and become a fire hazard to more established trees. Our crapper was one way in which we were protecting the forest. As one American Hunter magazine recently noted, "hunters make the best conservationists". After we put the beams and seat over the hole, we each did a dressed rehearsal to see if it was sturdy enough. The front beam sagged a little too much for our liking, so we cut a couple of legs out of some scrap we had left over, and screwed them in place. That seemed to work just fine. We wrapped it with tarps, put the shaved pine boughs on the ground at the foot of the throne (which helped mask the scent a bit, and acted as a visual barrier), and put a can full of ashes next to the seat. I also had brought a strawberry scented candle with this in mind, which I set next to the seat to be lit when the outhouse was in use. We're not complete barbarians.

With one of the most important elements of camp all taken care of, we decided to go off on a hike, to get more ideas about where we were hunting. In the fresh snow we saw elk tracks, deer tracks, and cow tracks pretty clearly... some pretty close to camp. We walked down the road a bit (or up, rather... sort of the theme of the day) and hooked off across a field into a heavily wooded area, which is where elk like to hang out. Apparently, animals that are food like to hang out where animals that try to eat them don't like to hang out. The snow is sticking to the ground less now, and the rising sun is dispatching what little had held there in the first place. We've come across a few areas that we can see they've been laying, some game trails, and a scrape (which we've established is much too low to be an elk). If you don't know what a scrape is, watch Bambi... right before we get informed about animals being twitterpated, Bambi makes a scrape on the tree, which rubs the bark off of the tree, and the velvet off of his antlers. It also sharpens them, making them perfect for when he wants to roast a bunch of marshmellows all at once... though that part got cut out of the movie because it took away from the drama of the forest fire scene. We also saw a couple of deer, as they bounced away from the other side of a clearing and into the forest.

After making a decent sized loop away from camp, and up to the top of "the bowl" (the valley we're camping in), we decided it was time for snacks. Fortunately, the top compartment on my backpack is stuffed with them. After some refreshments, uncle Pat hands me his 9mm Taurus pistol, and flips the safety into "you sure as hell better not be pointing this at anything you don't intend to shoot" mode, and I take aim at a knot on a tree about 35 feet in front of me and squeeze the trigger. This thing doesn't kick as much as my 30-06 rifle does. Perhaps distracted by the fact that the gun didn't try to jump out of my hands, I didn't see where (if anywhere on the tree) my bullet hit. I turn the gun a bit to the side, to make sure that the safety is off, but neglect to take my finger off the trigger (rookie mistake). This thing really does not take much pressure to get it to fire. The bullet darts off into the forest to my left, and the rest of the company jumps back a bit, except uncle Pat, who probably didn't even hear the gun go off. Lesson learned: the finger stays off the trigger until you mean to shoot.

Heading back to camp, we decide to take as straight a path as the trees and the barbed wire fences would allow. It worked out well to have a gps that worked off road... unlike mine. The one we used also doesn't have a russian accent, and doesn't tell you "In 500 feet, turn right." 20 seconds after you were supposed to turn. The thick brush on the way back and the lack of desire to go anywhere other than directly ahead meant it was convenient that I had my machete strapped to my back pack. I successfully chopped my way back to safety.

Back at camp, a whole lot of nothing to do.... which is actually fine by me. It gave me time to focus on important things. "What kind of important things?" you ask? The important kind.
I took the top of one of the saplings we had cut down (but turned out not to need), and cut off the smooth green bark from most of it, and carved out what I believe to be a perfectly Erika sized walking stick. Since she's not here to use it, I'll have to bring it back with me and give it to her some time. I also cut a notch on the uphill side of the already cut section of the thick part of the stick and made it look like a deer hoof. After fire hardening the whole thing, and actually burning the deer hoof section for color, it's ready for use.

The rest of the day was spent perfecting Erika's walking stick, changing something about it every time I look at it, dodging the smoke, eating, and dodging more smoke. Now I'm off to bed before any more of my words run together. Good night, Neverland.

Into the whiled: Scouting

Day 2. Sunday, Oct. 24th.

No such luck. Woke up about half an hour into the night on an entirely deflated mattress. I did manage to go back to sleep pretty quickly. The rain has cleared up, which is good because we're taking off on our first hike today, to get an idea of some good places to find elk. We piled into uncle Pat's truck and drove up a few different logging roads. Walking around on the top of Bone Ridge or something, we found a few different game trails to walk and check for elk signs (hoof prints, droppings, beds) I noticed Grandpa was walking off on his own in a different direction than uncle Pat and my dad, so I figured I'd sort of follow him. Something tucked in among the foliage on the forest floor caught my eye. Appeared to be the lower section of a deer leg. At first I figured it was a scrap that fell off of a mountain lion's table, but a closer look showed the leg to have been cut, not torn, which means that it must be human. What's more, the fact that it's still a few weeks before deer season around here means it's poachers. There are a lot of people who give hunters a bad name, but I think poachers might be the worst of them. They don't care about managing herd sizes, or maintaining healthy ecosystems, or any real sort of hunting ethics. They care about getting their trophy, their meat, or their payment, and not getting caught or having to pay. Uncle pat says a lot of poachers will sell their meat to local restaurants or the Indians.

We also saw what seemed to be the remains of a turkey, and some elk prints, droppings, and beds. toward the end of our walk I found a big pile of hair, and a hide that looked like a deer had slipped it off and left it on the floor, too lazy to toss it into the laundry bin. Further evidence that poachers just wanted to get in, get some meat to sell, and get out.

As the rest of the men stood around a little stock pond, I decided I wanted to do more exploring, so I climbed up on a rock pile and looked off in the distance with my binoculars. Uncle Pat took a picture of me, which I will probably put as my profile picture when I get back. I must say, I look like quite the adventurer.

Finally got to see the nearly full moon tonight as it crested the tree tops. Hopefully the skies stay clear.

Sitting around the camp fire, with the inconstant wind never making its mind up about where it wants to blow the smoke, is an exercise in patience/not swearing too much in front of your grandpa. It's ridiculous, and I'll probably have lung cancer by the end of the week. Going to try to sleep on a deflated mattress again. Wish me luck.

Into the whiled

So, I recently went on a trip with my dad, up to the Ritter unit of the Umatilla national forest, outside of Dale, Oregon, to hunt elk. I'm blogging the trip now from what I wrote in a notepad while I was up there. I figure this is easier than telling everyone about it individually.

Saturday, Oct. 23rd, 2010
Day One. The Drive.

We left the house at around 3 am or something ridiculous like that. We had to get Mama to the San Fransisco airport, and we had a 13 hour drive ahead of us. We headed up 395, I think, and by breakfast time (or rather, the time our stomach's started growling and our eye lids decided we needed caffeine) we were in Williams, California. You know the place. No Starbuck's in sight (I know. Frowning emoticon) so we stopped at a McDonald's. That's fine, even though I know they're not actually food, I still love Bacon Egg and Cheese McGriddle's. There's a middle aged man and a mid 20's girl in there wearing camoflage, which of course means we're going to talk to them. They're on their way to go duck hunting. We're on our way to go Elk hunting. We're from Los Gatos. They're from Sebastopol (Seb-aa-stuh-poll). She didn't seem to remember my friend, Forrest, (who I figure she went to school with) until I mention that he was approximately 100 feet tall and was a poll vaulter, though he could just as easily have been the poll. Bellies full, eyes open, and back on the road. It's a while before we see any sunlight, but that's fine because it was also a while before we got to anywhere that was really beautiful. In case you were ever considering taking a sight seeing tour straight up the middle of California, don't. As the sun rose, so did our elevation, and we were driving up through the pillared halls of the mountain king, and suddenly through huge grassy flat-lands in mountain valleys, and then back into woodlands and up along winding roads. We'd get to look out, over the valleys as we carved our way along the side of the higher hills, at what must (in the winter) really be like a picture print by Courier and Ives. I really wish my camera was faster, and took higher quality pictures some times, because I can't fully explain how beautiful these areas were. Simultaneously quaint and vast, green and gold, antique and timeless. There are trees up here I'm not sure I've ever seen. The cathedral spires of ever-green trees that hem us in on every side are interrupted occasionally by sparkling explosions of yellow from Valley Oak, Aspen, (maybe) Birch, and Tamarack (the only deciduous conifer I know of)

The closer we got to the Oregon border, the more steadily the air grew full of water droplets. The moisture in the air and the angle of the sun gave us the rare opportunity to actually chase a rainbow. Directly to our right at first, and later moving along about 20 feet in front of us was a double rainbow.... all the way across the sky. It was even starting, at one point, to look like a triple rainbow. I couldn't even fully capture it on my camera. It was.... so intense.

We saw a pretty large herd of prong horned antelope (which I'd never seen in the wild) laying down in a field. I wanted to throw a rock at them so I could see the fastest land animal on the continent in action, but I didn't have a rock, and they seemed content to just be lazy bastards.
We had lunch at a diner in "The tallest town in Oregon", got our elk tag at a little sporting goods store, and made it up to Dale by late afternoon and met Uncle Pat at the turn off for the dirt road into camp. Fortunately, we got there with plenty of light left in the day, and got the tent set up and air mattresses inflated. Mine doesn't seem to be holding air too well, so we'll see how the night goes. It's a good thing everybody brought so much rope, and so many tarps, because we now have a covered kitchen area, and a covered sitting area around the fire in case it rains or snows like the weather report says it will. Speaking of which, tonight is the Hunter's Moon (second full moon of fall), not that we'd be able to tell, what with the clouds being so thick. The temperature's dropping, and all the caffeine's wearing off, so I'm going to crawl into my sleeping bag, put in my ear plugs, and hope I'm not sleeping on the hard ground by morning.