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Tip o' the Day

Even as a young buck my homing instincts were usually pretty good: I seldom missed a opportunity to pilfer a cookie or beg a slice of pie. I did grow up in mountain country where, if a man kept his eyes open and occasionally checked his backtrail, it was easy enough to return in time for supper.

Not so, I'd reckon, for folks fetched up in the north woods of Minnesota and Michigan, where hills to climb to catch one's bearing are few and far between and swamps frequent the forested flatlands. There, I'm told, a compass is a must -- and I believe it.

To me, growing up in the mountains, such an instrument was merely excess weight. Yet there are dozens of folks who hike and hunt Montana's northern Rockies who turn out unable to find their own way back to camp or car. Search and rescue units, Sheriff's posses, and Forest and Park Rangers are often called out to find them. Bloodhounds are sometimes used to track them, and even search planes and helicopters might be employed.

Happy endings are the norm for most of the lost, but even those happy endings are not without embarrassment for the cold and bedraggled; and not without considerable expense for volunteers and organizations.

A few lost incidents end in tragedy. Most of those tragic endings, if researchers are able to piece together an accurate account of what transpired, occurred because the individual lost a sense of judgment and ultimately died from exhaustion or exposure. And there's the real tragedy -- not that someone became confused, but that they panicked.

Lost hunters was the single-most haunting specter to me and my guides while leading them to adventure. Fortunately, we never lost anyone during my two decades guiding others, but the fear was there nevertheless.

The public face I put on that fear was flippant, telling prospective hunters, "We've never lost anyone yet, but ours is a money-back guarantee: If you don't come back, you get your money back.

Some, of course, found little humor there. But I operated on the theory that I'd prefer not to spend a week or two in the big lonesome with humorless people. Being able to look on the bright side of marginal stuations helps when the thermometer bottoms out, or it rains for ten solid days.

Does self-deprecating humor play a role for a poor soul who wanders for days on the way to the privy? Search me. I do know, however, that game trails have a habit of looking like Sunset Boulevard until you try to follow one back to camp. Only then will you notice all the feeder trails peeling off, many of which also look like a boulevard. And it's then that you'll ask which one did I follow this morning?

Look over your shoulder going out. Turn full around and study your back trail. See that leaning tree? How about the elk rub in the tag alder?

Ahh, the privy at last!

I have just finished The Phantom Ghost of Harriet Lou. Wow! It was wonderful! I was transported from my stateroom aboard a destroyer to the wilderness I roamed as a teenager. Your tales were well told, enlightening and dead on the money. The open ocean on a calm clear night is beautiful, but I'll never hear the hoarse bellow of a rutting bull. Driving a warship from the bridge into heavy seas and tailing green water is exhulting, but not nearly as much as stumbling across grizzly tracks that haven't begun to fill in. Thank you for sharing with me. My dad sent me the Thursday Great Falls Tribune, no matter where I am in the world for the last 13 years. I have always enjoyed your writing, but this book was special.

NO WONDER ELK ARE HARD TO FIND!

My eyes popped open and I listened for a moment before whispering, "Are you awake?"

"I've been listening to him for five minutes."

I smiled grimly -- we can't get a bull elk to bugle all day, now here's what sounds like a grandaddy standing above camp in the moonlight, bugling at saddlehorses shuffling in our corral.

"My goodness," Jane whispered, "is he coming into the tents?"

I can hear murmuring coming from our hunters' tent. Someone says just loudly enough to carry, "Y'all stay right there, hear? Ah'll be with you first thing in the mornin'."

Still, the bull continued to bugle. I sighed. "He's got to be down in the meadow by now."

Incredibly, another bull opened up from across the creek and I pounded my pillow in frustration. "Isn't that beautiful?" Jane murmurs. My reply is a silent nod into the darkness while the mind wandered . . . five straight days without so much as a cow squeak, let alone these deep-throated, full scale, monster roars from within a hundred yards -- like what's going on now!

As a matter of fact, we'd not found all that many fresh tracks -- though in all fairness, the weather had been so hot and dry even fresh tracks seemed to age rapidly.

My Lord!" she gasped. "He's coming closer!" I shook my head at the irony of it; elk in camp at night, can't find 'em during the day. Are they too smart for us? Or are we too dumb for them?

Then I recollected how, a few days before, our wrangler, then both guides, and finally the outfitter spent four hours looking for our extra horses. There were ten of them. Eight were wearing bells. Two were paints -- a tan and white and a black and white. Three were sorrels. There were two white horses, two bays, and a black. Normally they feed in the scattered grass and timber east of camp. And when at last we found them, that's where they were, holed up in the shade of a small thicket, standing so still none rang his bell.

"Ain't no wonder we can't find elk," Kenny said, leaning across his saddle's horn and staring at the lost horses. "Elk blend with their cover, work real hard at hiding, and don't wear bells.

I grinned and nodded at the old wrangler's sage observation. White horses show up amid trees, black ones on snow, paints catches a spotter's eye. All colors of the rainbow, most wearing bells, all craving the oats we keep in camp. And still, we humans have to use the "blunder method" just to locate domestic livestock. As Kenny says, "Ain't no wonder we can't find elk."

The bull nearest camp quit bugling abruptly. I supposed he winded us at last.

The next day we found where a couple of saplings had been savaged by one of the bull's antlers. One sapling was less than a hundred yards from our cooktent.

Not surprisingly, we found few tracks. Also, not surprisingly, we spend an entire day bugling our guts out to no avail. Had it not been for the fresh rubs and their bugling the night before, we would've thought no elk were in the country.

During supper the following evening, one hunter asked, "How long you been a-doin' this, Cheek? You shore you know how to hunt elk?"

Later, after we'd gone to bed and the camp quieted, the big bull bugled again from higher up the mountain that towered above camp.

And once again I pounded my pillow in frustration.

 

 

Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:

www.rolandcheek.com

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