Family Traditions Part III

This is the third and final installment of the story I started on Wednesday and continued on Thursday.

Hanging On

I found myself in Salt Creek on the last day of the hunt, knowing the following day we would be hiking out. I’m not sure if I’ve ever ventured into a more dangerous place than Salt Creek! I started down Salt Creek amazed at the sheer cliffs that seemed to appear out of nowhere. I was having a sandwich and glassing a ridge across the canyon when I caught sight of two cows bedded down under the rims and I figured on heading that way. Then I turned my binoculars down to the bottom of the canyon and saw what I wanted. A bull lay in the shadows, but there were some horrible rims between us. I began to descend, carefully planning each step. Several times I got to a point where I just knew I was going to die. Once, I stood on a ledge with one foot in a crack and my hand grasping the top of a big rock, my bow was in my free hand and my other foot dangled out in space with nothing under me for fifty feet. The daypack I carried made it more difficult to maneuver, and several times I was tempted to stash my bow as my focus went from pursuit of a bull to simply staying alive. At first, I had tried to remain quiet, but soon found that I wasn’t even cringing a little bit when a mess of rocks went bounding noisily down the canyon. When I finally reached the bottom of the canyon, I was rewarded with an abundance of bugles and cow calls. I spent an hour and a half working the bull I never saw once I reached the bottom, but he wouldn’t leave his harem. I worked him every way I knew how until I finally heard him round up his cows and leave. The sun was long gone from the bottom of the canyon and was only splashing the tops of the mountains. I knew I was an hour or more to get out of the canyon, and then it would be another hour from there to camp. What I forgot was that while it was dangerous going down the canyon, it was still a pretty fast descent. Going up the canyon would not be so fast. I made only twenty steps before I needed a rest, and as I continued to climb, I began to realize what I was up against. At times I was on all fours, other times I emulated a rock climber as I scaled ten to fifteen foot cliffs. I was almost four hours just in getting out of the canyon, and it was completely dark when I reached the ridge. I was dizzy with fatigue and hunger - and I loved every minute of it. Finally, I reached camp a weary and humbled person. I felt lucky to get out alive, frankly, and as I told my story, I tried to make an impression on the others, but they simply nodded in casual understanding. These were men that had been hunting that canyon for thirty years and all my best efforts at impressing them with the dangers lying in that canyon went for nothing. I was simply preaching to the choir. Our hunt ended without any of us shooting an animal. Scott and Arlen had several close calls, including one with a black bear that Scott, who had the only bear tag among us, missed at forty yards as he tried to thread it through a couple trees. Perhaps it is not necessary to mention that threading arrows through trees often results in a broadhead getting stuck in a tree trunk - and this was no exception.

Sweet Serenade

That night we were treated to lullabies by the bugling bulls as the full moon kept them up late. Battling the bugles and the cold mountain air that kept trying to wrap its fingers around my bald head, I fought to get some sleep. I finally wrapped a shirt around my head to keep it warm, and then with the bulls’ screams echoing through the night, I finally drifted off to sleep. As the final morning broke colder than the rest, talk was quiet as we regretted having to leave – whether from the realization that a twelve-mile hike awaited us or because our hunt was over could depend on which of us you ask! The bulls were still screaming in the false dawn, and each bugle brought a silence from the four of us hovering over our hot breakfast as we tried to pinpoint each bull’s location. The fire danced on our faces and I realized, but not for the first time, that this was the best life a person could ask for. Far away, in some city, people were on their way to work and among thousands and thousands of cars, they were panic stricken, scurrying along interstates and highways always conscious of the time and wishing for more. Here, the four of us sat huddled among the trees, enjoying each other’s company, and among millions of acres of wilderness we cared not about time, and time didn’t care about us. Now the trip was through, save for the pack out, and we could look back without regrets. When a person gets to enjoy companionship and simultaneously can enjoy the solitude of the mountains, and he gets to experience the echo of bugling bulls screaming hauntingly in the canyons, and he gets to listen to the wind’s whisper grow to a growl, and he becomes a part of the wilderness and can appreciate the unmatched beauty of the land, and he gets to walk the ground he grew up walking only in his mind – well, that just can’t be beat.

Here is a parting shot - looking across the canyon from halfway down in it.