That’s how I was feeling one day last week when I slogged up a near-vertical timbered fringe of a broad open park through shin-deep snow. On top, I found a gently ascending ridgeline that led to the crest of the little hunk of a mountain range where I was hunting.
Looking back the way I had come, I saw my tracks rapidly filling with blowing snow. The valley below was all but invisible in a shroud of misty swirling white. Any elk in the vicinity were settled in to thickest cover, waiting it out. There was absolutely no sign of game. As I began to carefully work my way up the ridge, I felt utterly alone.
When the four of us - my brother Val and my pals Sparky and Walleye - had parted ways at the trailhead at dawn, we planned to cover the draws and ridges that would lead us all to the same general location. We started in wet grass on the valley bottom, each of us working our way up steep slopes to eventually reach the snow that might stay all winter. Now, my companions were somewhere not far away.
Ascending the ridge, I walked slowly upward through forest that afforded 30 or 40 yards of good visibility in case an elk was unlucky enough to be hanging around. In the swirling snow, I tried to keep track of my route, making mental notes of particular wrinkles in the landscape, a large old Douglas fir, a spot where the ridge dropped away to the south with a fleeting glimpse of the drainage below, and a tangle of undergrowth and dog hair thickets on the north slope clawing out onto the ridge top.
The summit wasn’t far ahead when I opted to turn around, tired of fighting to see through the blowing snow. On the way down, trying to follow my own tracks, I repeatedly stopped to consult my map and my compass to make sure I knew where I was. But before long I had lost my own trail and could not identify the various landmarks I had hoped to provide me with a little guidance.
So, I was relieved when I saw fresh boot tracks cross the ridge. Thinking it must be Walleye, I followed for a while hoping to catch up, but when the tracks plunged over the side and headed straight for the nastiest, thickest part of the slope, I chose to return to the ridge.
But now, everything was strangely unfamiliar. The farther I went, carefully picking my way downward, the more I knew I was not where I wanted to be. I was on the steepest and thickest part of the south slope, grabbing onto saplings with every step to keep from slipping and falling. I couldn’t help thinking how much harder it would be for my 60-year-old body to endure a dramatic crash landing than it would have been in my youth. I even conjured a broken leg and the long, cold wait that would ensue before help arrived. And I stepped ever more carefully.
With great relief, I finally attained the bottom of a steep draw where a game trail threaded its way down. It seemed to go on and on, all completely unfamiliar. It was another hour before the slope became gentler, and still another mile or so before the valley bottomed out and I knew that the road and the rig weren’t far ahead.
I emerged from the forest to see that I was nowhere near where I had expected to come out. To my consternation, I knew I was more than a mile from the truck and a whole drainage north of where I thought I was. I walked by a camp and was greeted by one of the hunters milling around a warm fire.
“See anything?” he asked.
“Not a track,” I replied.
“Where did you come in from?” he asked.
“Oh, down the pike a ways,” I said, trying to act nonchalant.
Later, when I met up with Walleye, I mentioned how difficult it had been to get my bearings in the blowing snow.
“It was like a whiteout up there,” I exclaimed.
“Sheesh, that was no whiteout. What are you talking about?” Walleye responded.
I didn’t need that. I was already feeling my age.
Old or not, or even a little turned around, there is no such thing as a bad day on the hunt. And as this hunting season rolls to a close, I know that every one of those days afield is a bonus.
Greg Tollefson is a freelance Missoula writer whose column appears each week in Outdoors. He can be reached at gtollefson@bresnan.net.
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