“Moose Hunting?”
If it weren’t for Pete’s declaration last night, I wouldn’t have laughed quite so loud. “Here’s the deal on rain pants,” he had said. His matter-of-fact tone was inviting ridicule. He’s good with that. In the name of humor and light-heartedness, Pete has always been willing to put himself out-there.
“You spend the money on the raincoat, but not on the rain pants. Pick yourself up some cheap ones like these ones here. I got em at Wal-Mart. They’re gonna get trashed anyway... save yourself some money.” Okay Pete.
After the laughter died down I moved in closer to inspect. His “cheapies” had split in two blowing out his entire crotch. Not only were they split along both legs’ in-seams down to the calf but there was another rip shooting down the backside too. What was he doing? Hurdling? Goose-stepping?
Although my laughter was genuine, I knew these were his only rain pants for the whole week. “You might have to wear your chest waders.” I offered.
The wind had picked up. It was blowing in our faces, pelting us with gratuitous sideways-rain. The tires were sinking into the muddy road more and more with each passing hour. I leaned into the harness, stretching the bungee cord tether taught. Pete pushed from behind the cart gripping the handles like a wheelbarrow. “ Hold up,” Pete stopped the train.
“What now?” I thought.
The inner tube had herniated itself through a hole in the sidewall of the tire. The bulbous black plum was jammed against the wooden frame preventing the tire from rolling. I had left the spare tire and inner tube back in the truck on purpose. They would be useless without the bicycle pump we had forgotten. “Well, let’s get this thing off the road.” Pete grabbed the back as I pulled on the front.
“BOOOOM.” The tube-exploded sounding ironically like a gunshot. Little did we know at the time that this was as close the sound of a large caliber rifle as we would get on this trip. Like a Labrador on a duck hunt, I couldn't help but get excited at the loud noise. I wagged an imaginary tail.
Back in the garage, it had seemed a “good-idea” to attach a braking mechanism. A few years ago I had ripped the cable brakes from a defunct baby jogger. How cool would it be to debut some sweet brakes? The load of five hundred pounds of gear mounds over the cart rails like a muffin-top and doesn’t exactly stop on a dime. There are a handful of downhills on our journey that I felt justified such a modification. With a one-handed grip I would be a hero. Plus it was cute, a novelty, like the year my dad attached a license plate to the back. Pete will be impressed, I thought.
Unlike the licence plate though, my nifty idea popped our tire. Apparently you have to be pretty precise with the placement of those brake pads. The brakes, tweaking and riding upward with each bump in the road had risen to the sidewall of the tire, rubbing its way through. From hero to zero in a flash, I took a bitter bite of humble pie. Coffee anyone?
Using our big fat brains again, we decided to switch out the front tire with the blowout. Since the front tire wasn’t supporting as much weight, maybe it would still work even if it were flat. Pete pounded on the end of the front axle with a rock.
With Pete’s use of the primitive tool I couldn’t keep the comparison out of my mind between our fumblings and that of our distant cousins; the Neanderthal. The image of the Geico Neanderthal in-particular darted in and out of my self-image as the day progressed.
Soon enough we had made the tire switch and congratulated ourselves for our resourcefulness. As I walked back up to my position at the front, I stopped to bend the brake up and out of the way. Pete, not trusting my adjustment, came around and snapped it off entirely. With the harness secured over my shoulders and cinched tightly in the back, we hitched up the wagon again. Giddy up.
The flat tire, sagging loosely on the rim was a sad and sorry leader to our efforts through the mud. Pete’s crotch-blowout was flapping in the wind at the back like a wayward rudder. But, with what felt like a new lease we pushed, pulled and otherwise coerced our way towards the back of the valley.
On the big hill we were reduced to a twenty pace surge. Digging into the road on the balls of our feet, our anaerobic effort pushed us up the hill between rests. At the end of these pushes, the cart was tilted backwards digging the bottom corner into the mud to prevent us from rolling back. Four caribou skirted up and over a nearby bench. They were probably snickering.By the time we reached the last stream crossing the creek was swollen. We didn’t realize at the time that Pete’s clothes bag had cleverly situated itself at the bottom of the cart. It was selflessly protecting the rest of the load from the rushing currents of the stream’s reaches. The icy waters flushed over the tops of the wheels and onto the bottom of the cart.
The boulders in the creek bed were doing their best to halt our progress. Pete strained against the bungee, pulling it tight. “One, two, three.. Ughhhh!” . The cart surged forward. My numb feet jockeyed for position.
Upon reaching the far bank Pete declared a break. By now the storm was revealing itself fully. The gusts of wind were more frequent. The undersides of the willow leaves turned and twisted-over in waves lasting several minutes. We were closer to the snow line now and the rain wanted to make the big change. I could feel it. We pushed on for a few more miles. A ptarmigan fluttered and cackled from a nearby bush scaring the bejesus out of Pete. Ahead there were several more hills waiting for us. Our pace slowed.
“I think we should camp here,” I offered. Eight hours and thirteen miles later we had made it to the foot of the switchbacks. Two years ago we had made it all the way to the top of them in the same amount of time. This year was different on many levels. I looked up into the pass briefly as the wind pelted sloppy sleet into the slits of my eyes. Snow covered the upper reaches blending itself perfectly with the blinding white of the stormy sky. Pete muttered something about Mordor.
I was cold. My useless, lightweight gloves had been saturated for miles. I had been warm on the uphill pushes but as soon as we stopped I quickly lost my heat. My fingers weren’t working well. As quickly as I could, I ripped open my clothes bag and threw on a few layers keeping my raincoat clenched tightly between my legs. The wind gusted again as the coat slipped out of my knee’s clutches plastering itself against the cart in a stroke of luck. A quick lunge-move secured it back again. I slung it over my back and zipped it up.
“Oh Great.” I looked over at Pete. He was holding up his goose-down coat. A steady stream of water poured down out of both sleeves before being vaporized by the wind. Further diggings into his bag would reveal equally drenched garments.
I cinched up my hood and grabbed the tent bag. The virtual kite we were constructing kept making a break-for-it. Setup should have taken us five minutes. A half hour later my frozen fingers were still fumbling around with the rainfly. Finally we pinned it down with rock anchors on all the guy-lines. I filled up all our water bottles at the stream before I crawled in. Methodically, slowly I zipped up my sleeping bag with my cold clammy fingers being careful to keep everything out of the gathering puddles forming on the tent floor.
Pete, wielding his undying positivity, no doubt inherited from our mother, cracked a few jokes as he finally situated himself in the tent. What was he so happy about? I was cold, tired, hungry, and disgruntled about our situation. Myself, fully aware of the slippery slope of negativism, shut up and let Pete set the tone.
The rain slapped itself over the tent in sheets outside our little cocoon . Soon he began gathering together dinner-makings. He had dragged the food bag close enough to reach from under the front of the tent. After unzipping enough venting, he lit the cook stove carefully in the tents’ vestibule.
Pete’s I-pod speaker was hanging from the ceiling and was playing some Dave Matthews. Dave crooned us over the hiss of the cook stove and the roar of the wind outside. A few slugs off the rum bottle warmed us as Pete diced, seasoned, jockeyed and joked. Had Dave Matthews ever weathered a storm like this?
Myself, slow to warm and tired as hell, was in no mood to cook but today I was lucky enough to be under the good graces of my brother. Soon enough, served in the lid of the pot itself was a tent-bound meal of savory wonder.
The sauteed onions and serrano peppers mingled with the browned moose sausage and a few sliced chunks of bratwurst in a slather of olive oil. With that aside he started boiling the water. In the end, the cheesy Velveeta shells blended it all brilliantly and warmed us from the inside.
Years ago we gave up on dehydrated ready meals. Nowadays we bring fresh ingredients. We cook real food. “ Wow, this is really good!” I remarked as a greasy wheel of sliced bratwurst tumbled onto my sleeping bag. The remaining noodle water was poured into empty nalgene bottles and tucked into our sleeping bags for warmth. Pete was the man today.
Another blast of rain rudely spat over us again. Just then, the howling wind subsided long enough for me to hear the roar of the next gust building in the pass. Soon it would scour over-top and test our barriers again. Realizing there was nothing left to do, no decisions to be made, I drifted off to sleep rather pleasantly actually.
The morning light illuminated the tent. I had noticed during the night that my sleeping bag had taken on quite a bit of water. I had to retract my feet a bit after I felt the saturation. The driving wind had flattened the rainfly onto the tent wall on my side allowing for seepage. I hate seepage.
“I’m going up to the pass.” I had been cooped up long enough. I had slept well, I was warm, and now I was restless with a wet sleeping bag. I gathered my clothes, unzipped the tent and thrust myself out into the gale that hadn’t left us.
After re-securing the guy-lines I scooped the wet snow that had accumulated on the tent and refilled the water bottles. "See you in a few." I shouted over the wind.
"What?"
" I'll be back in a while, I'm going up to the pass."
"Okay."
I set out for the pass, I had to check it out. I had to know.
There was slushy snow on the ground blanketing the muddy road. Each successive switchback produced another inch of snow. Halfway up the hill it was six inches deep. By the time I was near the top I was breaking trail in deep, wet snow almost to my knee. I took a break in spite of myself and realized that the cart wouldn’t roll through this stuff. The thought of packing our whole kit an additional 1,000 vertical feet through a snow-choked pass was daunting.
Soon, I was joined by five ptarmigan. Popping out from under a bush they scurried up the road twenty feet from me. I could tell they were feeling some anxiety about me but not enough to take flight. Their half-and-half plumage was beautiful. Their brown heads clashed with the stark white of their lower body. Like a sore thumb, they stuck out against the snow. Another one joined them from a different bush. The seven of us, making our way up the hill became unlikely hiking buddies. Finally after three switchbacks, they warned me with their telltale call and then took flight into the gale winds. “ Tak a tak a tak a tak atakaka akakakakak.”
I realized now that our hopes of reaching the moose hunting grounds this year, much like the birds, were swept away in a fit of weather. I watched the cackling flock blow over the mountainside disappearing into a creek bed near the bottom.
I too turned away from the wind, stepping back down the hill, striding in my own post-hole steps.
