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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.

MAKING FRIENDSHIPS WORK

Bud was the finest outdoorsman I've ever known. He and his 25-year-old son first hunted with me in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in 1975. They returned to hunt several more times and over the course of decades became particularly good friends.

Bud was a railway engineer, and Lacy followed in his father's footsteps. The elder man retired in 1984 and he and his wife, Doris, migrated annually between their Oregon home and the Arizona desert. Our friendships continued to flourish even after Jane's and my retirement from outfitting and the obvious distance between Bud's and Doris's home and ours. In fact, Jane and I have branched out for annual adventures with Lacy and his wife Colleen: hiking with llamas in Utah's Canyonlands, floating for over a hundred miles down the wild Missouri, wild horse hunting for Spanish Barbs in southeast Oregon.

But the subject of Lacy's father continually crops up. "Why don't you ask your dad if he'll come with us?" I'll say.

"I have. All the time."

"Well, can't he make it? We'll take it easier if he wants."

"I know it. You know it. He probably knows it, too, if he'll only think about it. Instead, he just doesn't think he can do it any more."

"Is his health slipping?"

"No, that's the frustrating thing."

But evntually Bud's health did slip. We were able to talk him into making a short visit with us to mountains near his home in Oregon, then he was gone....

We have other friends, Jane and I. Marilyn's father cares for her mother who suffered from advanced mental deteroration. Because her father was tied so closely to home, his will to stay active and able entered on on a rapid downhill slide. What's worse, was Marilyn's father taking a dim view of anyone trying to encourage him to take a more active role in living.

What's the point of this?

We're all growing older. We're a day older today than yesterday and tomorrow we'll be older yet. There's no way to prevent growing older, but we can combat the slide by refusing to think and act an age some folks think proper. We must stay active. Most of all, we must think active.

Rhoda Cook, the now deceased Grande Dame of Montana's outfitting and guiding industry once told me (when she was 81-years-old(, "Roland, I may grow older, but I'm not going to grow old!"

What a beautiful concept.

It's sad to lose friends, no matter how: death, distance, changing interests, deteriorating health. There are so many ways to lose friends and so many conflicts on the way to enjoying time with them that one realizes special effort is required to make any friendship work. Special effort requires time, however. Time is in short supply everywhere.

For instance, Jane and I have other friends--perhaps our closest. They're our age, neighbors for over forty years. Our kids went to school and grew up with their kids. They have horses, as did we. We've horsepacked as families into the Bob Marshall together. We've skied together, hiked together, danced together, attended high school events together. Now, for a number of reasons we're unable to spend as much quality outdoors time with them as we'd wish. In fact, for whatever those reasons might be, we're barely able to visit.

It was while on our way home from a demanding hike to Hellroaring Pass that Jane said, "You know, I'm sad that our friends weren't with us today. I miss them."

"Which ones?" I asked.

"Does it matter?" she replied.

I had no answer. Have you?

 

 

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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