Retirement has been hanging around my mind for the last several years and finally, the day came when I just didn't want to work at the pace I had been accustomed to. I looked my affairs over and said to my self it's time to do something else. Part of the decision to leave my former lifestyle behind was the fact that I was sorely neglecting my writing and painting activities which had become a mainstay for my sanity. I will now be able to post in my blog on regular basis articles and stories that come to mind as I have more free time to research and compile these short stories and novels.
I suspect that between riding my horses and mules, combined with a little golf with my family this should keep me active and off the couch. I will now be able to go out on location and experience the sights and sounds that I put into these novels that help make them more lifelike when put into words. I am very excited about this new venture and I look forward to the path it will lead me. We all go down certain trails in life, some are really rewarding and others are not very enjoyable. I plan on making the most out of this opportunity I am blessed with and will do my part to make it a success.
Here is a small short story that happened to me back in the fall of 1982 while traversing the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana. I had left our Utah Valley for the pristine wilderness that lay adjacent to the beautiful Flathead Lake area in northern Montana. I was going on an elk hunt with several friends and we were hauling our horses into the trailhead area near Swan Lake. The weather that year was very enjoyable. As we unloaded and prepared to pack our animals near the start of the road-less area, I couldn't help but notice the absolute beauty of the surrounding forest dotted with conifer, aspen, and cedar. The smell in the air from the morning frost still on the bushes, and grasses, as we saddled up, was very welcome to my senses.
I had been looking forward to this hunting expedition for nearly a year. We had planned the hunt 8 months prior and when it became a reality my thoughts were constantly thinking of how it might unfold. Every waking hour I would find my mind working over small details in planning the event from my perspective. Finally, the day came as we motored our horse caravan through Utah, Idaho and into central Montana for the experience of a lifetime.
Back in the eighties the 'Bob' as it was known, was still in a state of prime untouched wilderness. Very few people traversed its trails and the mountainous country was nearly as it had been for the previous century. There were only three or four main trails into the area and they had been carved out long before by Native Americans and 18th-century explorers looking for the treasures they had heard that existed. You could ride one of these trails and never see another human being which is not the case in today's environment. Today the area is littered in the summer and fall months with hikers, climbers, and outfitters packing their clients into the area for trophy animals and fishing rewards.
During the fall months, you will find dozens of guided hunters in the area looking for deer, elk, and sheep hunting opportunities. From one grass park to the next the trail is littered with horses, mules, and campsites. This was not the case the morning we set off from the trailhead back in the fall of '82.
Traveling nearly 16 miles one way into our campsite on horseback, I never saw another camp or human being on that trip. We had the whole place to ourselves. As we ventured into the grand area we couldn't help but be excited about the prospects of the hunt of a lifetime. Oddly looking back on that trip it never dawned on me that during that long horseback ride into the wilderness we never even saw a squirrel along the way. The area was void of game animals and it took several trips into that area over various other years to understand why. The area is so vast that you could hunt several large canyons and grass parks and never see a single animal or track. And then you could travel another 5 miles or more and run into a canyon or valley teaming with game. The overall size of the wilderness lends itself to this type of hunting.
To be successful you need to be able to move camp every two or three days or set up spike camps 5 to 10 miles from the main camp. This will lend itself to more success over a longer time frame. That year we were rookies in the big scheme of things and we were caught up in the grandeur of the mountain and our surroundings and thus we were not rewarded with Bob's offerings.
As we set up our camp on the edge of a stand of conifers we hobbled the horses in front of the camp in a large meadow which we called a park. A small stream about 10 feet wide meandered its way through the park and followed the trail back many miles before it spilled into a beautiful alpine lake. As we had traveled past this lake earlier in the day, I noticed fish hitting the surface and so I had decided to spend at least one evening with my flyrod at the spillway waterfall.
We set up our camp very quickly and everyone decided to go off in one direction or another and hunt until dark. This way we could meet back for dinner and compare notes on tracks and what each of us saw. I made my way out and across the meadow to the far side of the park. I was working my way up the streamside looking for fish in the pools when I stopped cold in my tracks. There in front of me was a bear track, unlike anything I had ever seen. I was used to the black bear tracks of Utah and Idaho but I had never seen one of this size. I knelt down to examine the track and realized it was nearly double the length of my hand and if I turned my hand sideways it would touch the width of the track.
Cautiously, I surveyed my surroundings as I realized the track had been made that morning as we were packing into the meadow. Seeing nothing I made my way up the stream. I could see where the bear had moved in and out of the stream obviously looking for fish. I left the area and hiked up to a good lookout and spent the rest of the afternoon up there in the rocky crags overlooking the valley below me and the opposite side canyon. About dark, I made my way back to camp with nothing to tell but the story of the big bear track.
After several days of hard hunting, we were on the smelly end of what some call being skunked. The cost of the trip alone would have brought us several hundred pounds of prime beef for our families had we stayed home and used our brains. But man cannot be measured by consuming a domestic animal such as the modern beef cow. He has to lose all sense of reality and go off gallivanting across three states spending nearly two months pay on a wild-haired idea that was concocted without consulting his better half and using any common sense. The lure of the adventure was all too inviting and reasoning was null and void of any conversation that any of us had while planning this escapade.
There we sat night after night by the campfire telling old tales of hunts in the past. Not one single soul had chambered a round on this excursion let alone actually scoped an animal. The animals in our neck of the woods had made an exit to greener pastures. Nobody wanted to admit it but we fell into the category of soon to be eaters of tag soup.
Three days left during our 10 days stay, I decided to saddle my good horse up and trail off into the north for most of the day. I wanted to hunt up near the end of the park which was nearly 8 miles from our camp. I took a small lunch and left before daybreak riding old Rebel up the trail and out into the park heading north looking at the stars in the heavens. It was frosty cold and quite uncomfortable but back in my youthful days you just suffered and acted like you were some kind of Daniel Boone.
As I think back on that morning and age has caught up with me, I wouldn't even leave my bedroll nowadays. Heck, I wouldn't even have made the 16-mile ride let alone chopped wood for a solid week and ate C rations when we ran out of food on the 8th day. Looking back I would have worn myself out just loading up the trailer and went back into the house and had a nap.
That morning I got so cold that I peeled off the main trail and rode up into the timber so I could dismount and get a small fire started to warm myself up. It was still fairly dark so I felt like another half hour wouldn't slow my hunt down. I rein hobbled the mare and busted up some kindling and in no time I had a small glove warmer fire going on the ground in front of me. Sitting there eating cold biscuits and bologna made me really homesick that morning but I kept the code of the west and toughed it out.
As the morning light started to hit across the meadow, I could see I was nearly a mile up on one side of the park in a spotted piney area with a good view of the north end of the meadow. I decided to sit tight and see if anything came my way out of the timber to feed on the grasses below. I remember the sun streaking down through the pines as I got to my feet and stood in its warmth. What a morning I thought as I fumbled through my saddlebags looking for my watercolors. I'll just sit here and take some notes and make a sketch or two that beautiful morning.
I was completely engulfed in my artwork when the mare lifted her head and blew hard out of her nose. I looked up at her not more than four feet away from me and told her to serve a towel with the shower next time she blew her nose. A long time before this trip I had been taught that when a horse or mule had their ears pinned forward and was looking off in a direction that you had better take notice. The big mare was fixated on something behind me and off to my right side.
Slowly, I turned around and looked in the direction she was looking but I couldn't see anything. Thinking it might be a herd of elk I stood up and walked to her side and pulled my rifle out of the scabbard. I stepped in front of her and knelt down to scope the area in front of me and up the timbered slope.
I was not prepared for what I was about to see. Caught completely off guard and totally by surprise, I could see the outline of a large brown colored ball of fur coming down the slope in my direction. Now in a moment like this, your brain plays tricks on you. As I knelt there I realized I was less than forty yards from the biggest Grizzly bear I had ever seen. I quickly chambered a round as wild ideas traveled from one point to another in the crossways of my mind.
The big bear was meandering back and forth through the timber and didn't seem to have a purpose in mind. As he walked I could see his yellow-brown eyes and his huge head as he licked his lips in a kind of a nervous manner. Several times he would set his right paw up on a downed lodge pole and I could see the claws protrude from him as his weight pushed down on the log. He never made a sound and had it not been for the mare, I would never have known he was even in the neighborhood. I kept the rifle on him the whole time as he walked past us. He finally got level with us and turned his head to the side and looked directly at me. I guessed the distance to be about 15 yards or 45 feet. That's the distance I walked off after he left the area.
After just a brief pause and a look in our direction, the old boy just walked down through the timber and out into the meadow. He crossed the stream and dug along the bank several times looking for something but found nothing. He continued up and across the valley and into the canyon on the far side of the park nearly two miles away. I never took my scope off of him the whole time until he was completely out of sight.
Literally cleaning out my shorts and putting my racing heart back in my chest, I sat down and made my brain remind me of the whole scene. I was amazed that the mare had stood still because the bear could have been on top of us within two seconds when he looked our way. I guess he was just as surprised to see us as we were with him. That or he was nearsighted. The wind was in our favor but I had been sitting by a small fire for over an hour so he must have smelled something. I will never know what he thought and why he left well enough alone. I'm just glad that I didn't have to shoot him or have a fight with him.
I made a small watercolor of the scene before I climbed back in the saddle and made my way back to camp with the story. Later in life, I painted an oil painting from memory that resides in my daughters home of that big ole boy sashaying down through the timber like he was king of the whole enchilada.
Yes, we went gameless on this one and returned to lick our wounds and our hunting pride. We returned several years later to the Bob and found some success in a wintry scene that bodes for another story at another time. I have attached a picture of the painting for all to view and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did as I lived it those many suns ago.
