A Hike

June 18 2009

It is a sunny morning about eight o’clock and not a cloud in the sky. As I stand at the bottom of this mountain, I have a good hour of hiking before me. I know that there will be lot of stops for rest before I get to the top of this mountain. As I look up there is a large boulder that sticks out of the mountain. Half of it is bulging out. The other half is covered in dirt. It has grass and little green bush growing around it. And the rock is the size of a Volkswagen bug automobile.

 Then ten feet above that stands a cedar tree. It has no branch the first six to seven feet off the ground. Over the years the bull elk and maybe some mule deer have raked all the branches off the cedar tree to rub the velvet off their antlers or to show how strong and fit they area to the opposite sex or to the other bull elk in the arena. This will be my first stop to catch my breath.

 As I start up the hill I have a lot of energy. I always go too fast at first. The mountain has a 60 percent grade or more so by the time I get to the first stop I need a break bad. I’m taking in air very fast into my lungs as I stand by the cedar tree I’m out of breath.  As I’m catching my breath, it’s time to start looking for my next stop. Will it be a pine tree, maybe small aspen, or another unusual rock up in front of me? I’m looking around as I’m breathing very heavily I try to spot the next destination.

 Oh there are three small pine trees. They are about three or four feet tall. That looks like a good hike to get up the hill to them. My mind automatically says go man go” but I’ve got too catch my breath and my hart should slow down a bit before I take off too fasts. I have already taken off my hat. How that I’m getting older it doesn’t take too much for the sweat to flow off my head and down into my eyes. I have a sweatband I took out of my backpack so when the sweat starts to run it will slow it down.

 To have a successful hike you should have a few things with you. So it’s a good idea to have a day backpack with you. You should have something to drink and a lot of it. Pack food like a sandwich or two. You always got too have a lot of good goodies the ones that you like a lot so you’ll stop and have a break and have something to keep up your energy. Also in your pack a small first aid kit. It is always a good idea to have something to start a fire. You should have a lot of thing like knives light weight emergency survival sleeping bag and on and on. Try to be prepared. My mind goes back in time. When I first started to hunt and hike I didn’t have a daypack I just put thing in my pants pockets or my coat pockets. It how we just did it in though days.

 As the hike goes on I stop and go this way all the way to the top. When I get to the top there is a clearing that run’s one hundred yards long. The grass is about three feet high.

It bends over as I walk through it. As I’m walking in the grass there are round circle. Some are big and small that animals have made by lying down in the grass and it has flattened it. I’m going south. Then I’ll run into a pine tree with its top gone. The pine is a large one more than four feet around. It looks like lightning took the top of it off, many years ago. As I keep walking I run into a camp. It’s an old camp. It has been there for a hundred years. There are old ashes of campfires, old buckets that are smashed, and small campfire stoves that are rusted out into little pieces and a lot of old things like glass that are scattered around on the ground.

People could think that is junk and it shouldn’t be there. But for me and me alone it is history. It makes me think a lot. About times that someone was a sheepherder or hunter here so long ago. And they’re not on this earth today. Or maybe just a hiker like me.

 When I get to this camping spot, It makes me feel I’m safe and at ease. It’s like a home base. If I run into this camp spot or the pine tree with no top accidentally I know where I am. I know which way I should go. As a young boy I never owned a compass. It wasn’t something we couldn’t afford or had to have. I have to look for landmarks like the tree with no top or a big rock that looks funny.

Something that odd will catch my eye when I see it again hiking or hunting. So I would know it if I see it again. So as I sit here in this camping spot my mind goes over the things that I saw on my way to this place.

 Something makes me smile inside. I think of the hard work it took to get here. My mind goes over and over it. As I rest at this spot, I have a good hour of hiking before me. I’m going to a tree stand. It’s been there for a good forty years. As some hunters would say it’s a “honey hole”. That means if you sit in that stand there is a very good chance that you will get your elk or deer or maybe bear or cat that hunting season.

I get up and start to my destination. It’s not like the first half. I will be walking on the rim of the mountain. It runs south for a good two miles. It will go through pockets of pines and open meadows. Some will be covered in grass and others will be dotted with sagebrush. Sometimes I will be on one side of the mountain and then on the other. That is just the way the trail runs. I will see rocks, trees, and areas that will tell me that I’m going the right way. Just before I get to the stand I will have to drop off the rim and go down a steep gully of about a hundred yards. And then I will run into some water. The water comes out of the mountain in one place. It pools about twenty feet like a stream and then goes right back into the ground. There are a lot of trees around the water.

 And that is where the tree stand is. The stand is thirty feet off the ground on one side and on the other side of the tree it looks like fifty feet off the ground because the mountain is so steep. We have built a platform on the branches. We built steps to go up to the platform. First I screw two bolts into the tree for each step. For each step I cut slots for the two bolts. So the step will slide on to the bolts. That way I can take the step off the tree each time I   come and go. I have make seven steps that I can take off the tree. The first fifteen feet the steps will come off and there are eight steps that stay in the tree permanently.

 Weeks before we go hunting we take our sleeping bags, pads and tarps. I have stayed three days in the tree before. And my friend has stayed for six days straight before. And that is a long time to be in a tree stand.

 But today I’m just going to put a camera up so I can take pictures of any animals that come by the water. I will leave the camera there for a month and come back to look at the pictures it takes. The camera will take the picture automatically when something walks or runs by it. I tie the camera on the tree with bungee cords and get it all set up to take pictures a month before the hunt.

So I can now take a break. I will eat some of the food that I brought, sitting at the bottom of the tree stand. It’s hard not to think of the animals, I have seen and taken pictures of over the years. Most of the animals, didn’t know I was even around.

It’s time to go. I can go down the gully straight or start around the mountain going north and catch the ridge and follow it straight down. It takes nearly as long going down as up, no matter which route I take. The ridge is longer but easier. Today I choose the ridge, it’s not as steep and I don’t have to crawl around a lot of logs that will catch my backpack. If I would have taken the gully there are a lot of logs that have fallen into the gully. If you go that way you would have to climb up over the log or go around it and sometimes you can crawl under the logs. It could be fun and also a lot of work for you.

But today I’m taking the ridge just because. I start back go north. There are a lot of bushes. They are small but thick, my boot catches in the little branches and slows me down a little and the hill side is steep so that also makes the going slow. But I have just a little ways to go to the ridge. That catches the mountain and goes down to the bottom.

I still have to take breaks and catch my breath, I’m getting tired from all the hiking I have done today. I will work my way down the ridges and as I am walking I look at both sides of me. There is a gully on either side and they are very steep so I’m glad that I am on the ridge today. I keep working my way down, taking my time but I will soon be there. I get to the bottom. I will head north to get to my starting point. As I look north I have a two mile walk to the 4-wheeler. At the bottom of the mountain it has small rounded hills and more little gullies to go through. There are some long stretches and round knolls. There are a lot of old pines trees. The grass is very short because cattle have mowed it down to the ground. The trail shows up real good since the vegetation has also been eaten down. 

I have to return to where I stared because that’s where my 4-wheeler is parked. I’ve done two things at once: I’ve been in the outdoors and I’ve prepared for the hunt.

I get to the 4-wheeler and I’m tired and exhausted from all the walking I have done today but it has been fun in its own way. I have walked a good ten miles today and that’s not too bad for a guy my age.  I stop and have a candy bar and a good long drink. The ride back to the truck and camper is a good eight miles. And that is a fun day in the outdoors for me. It’s funny how the work of hiking is all done, that you can forget it so fast.