The Four Musketeers
Each scoop of my hand collected twenty or so berries. I was in no hurry to hike back up the hill. Hike a few steps, swipe some more berries; this was my pattern. There were at least two more packs of gear to hump down to the creek and I wasn’t particularly interested in getting too tired or sweaty this early in the day. So with a relaxed pace unfamiliar, I hiked and swiped and ate my way up to camp. Corey was with me and we had just dropped one of the rafts and a bunch of random gear down to the creek. The blueberries were thick but not nearly as thick as the crow berries. Each mouthful of crow berries was delightful. Having the definitive crunch and juice of a crisp apple, the seeds were discarded just in time for the next bite. We were at camp two.
“Hey guys, nice job”, Pete was packing up his stuff as his son Keaton helped and gathered the items that would round out their pack boards. They were ten minutes ahead of Corey and myself but no one was keeping track. This year it would be the four Musketeers. This year Pete and I were thrilled to bring our sons but it was a dubious start.
Pushing the cart a few day prior was a comedy of errors. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that we were pushing over 600 pounds of gear. Poor communication between Pete and I had us provisioned for a three week trip instead of the one week we scheduled time-off for. The extra weight, I figured, was directly associated with the amount of character and grit we would earn in the struggle. Okay.
As it turned out the extra weight probably had something to do with the three tire issues we had to deal with, including one right off the get-go in the parking lot. Nonetheless we made it to the back of the valley otherwise unscathed and we promptly set up camp.
Camp-time is healing time for us and is important to the success of our trip. Our hunt doesn’t end after the first day. As it turns out each successive day is just as hard as the one before and tasks left carelessly unfinished aren’t appreciated in the crisp rude mornings. I can remember dealing with rigid, frozen socks on more than one trip (I’m a slow learner)
Pete and I, overflowing with wisdom and advice kept the boys aware of these lessons and although they assured us that they already knew these things, hearing “I know” didn’t provide much solace to Pete and I.
But despite our sons’ differing perceptions of what camp tasks were optional versus mandatory, it was a brilliant evening. The crackling fire and a pull or two off of the rum capped our first day. Rum wasn’t an option for the boys but they more-than made up for it on their own requisite pulls of the chocolate treats.
In the morning, while Corey slept-in I would rig-up and put in my time on the fly rod. It has become an annual tradition for me to haul in a fly rod and fling around some fishing gear. I have yet to catch a fish but perhaps one day, when I am longer in the tooth than I already am I will be there casting-away with the sun in my face and the wind at my back and I will feel the tightening of the line that I so desire. I can clearly imagine the arched back and large dorsal fin sitting on top with it’s perfectly rowed scales in deep grey and blue coloring. Until that day all I can say is this; I am getting pretty good at casting! My fishing, however fruitless was still a wonderful experience and I am looking forward to having another go at it next year.
The next morning after packing up camp we set off, up the trail hoping to finish our cart-pushing duties by the end of the day. “Hey look”, I pointed ahead in the road. There, thirty feet ahead in the trail was a nice ptarmigan in half plumage. Luckily in addition to a fishing pole we also brought a 4/10 shotgun. I unclipped Corey from his harness and handed him the gun. Keaton was bungeed to the front of Corey’s harness and so as Corey advanced towards the bird, so did Keaton following closely behind tethered by the bungee cord. This hunting technique is probably not recommended in the hunter safety course but at least it was closely supervised by Pete and I. After a fleeting miss on the first shot, the bird took flight and Corey expeditiously dispatched the bird mid-flight. “Nice shot Corey!”
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| Corey and Uncle Pete and ptarmigan |
From there the work would become much harder as the grade of incline increased with each passing hour. Luckily Pete’s wife Amanda, bless her heart, provided more than just her consent for Pete and Keaton to go on the hunt. She also provided a mega Costco pack of Tic Tac’s of which the boys took full advantage of. (She also sent a jumbo pack of Extra gum wintergreen flavor, more on this later.) Keaton, popping Tic Tac’s during every stop of the cart exclaimed “Hey these things have 1.5 calories each” He was reading the label, “I’m gaining back some calories!” I mentioned something about a five gallon bucket of Tic Tacs but we were so bushed that I think my joke fell flat. I knew that the Tic Tac’s weren’t adding anything to Keaton’s efforts but he sure did have some dynamite breath.
Eventually we topped out and the pushing was easier. We were surprised and bit saddened to see that the mining company had scraped in a new road effectively destroying my self named Wolverine trail. Although the new trail proved “nice” I couldn’t help but to loath the visually abrasive scar on the mountainside, a trail that didn’t roll with the terrain but rather “B-lined” around the mountain in a long ugly scrape. The trail gained us further use of our cart and saved us a half a day of work but be both agreed that we wished it wasn’t there. It’s hard to accept such brash environmental development when it’s been such an integral part of my life for the last 31 years. We set up camp in the wind, Pete made dinner, and we went to sleep.
I got up earlier than the rest of the crew and decided to pack the raft down to the creek. I grabbed the 4/10 on my way out of camp. On my return hike I roused some ptarmigan, missed several shots but returned with one nice bird. By then the rest of the crew was up and ready to start packing. Maybe it was all the shooting that woke them. Over the course of the day we would shuttle all of our gear down to the creek and prepare ourselves for the next phase of operations.
Water was high. After puffing up the rafts and loading the gear we set-off down creek and although most years we are dragging at this point, this year we were actually floating but as I have come to learn, not all floating is the same. The boats, narrow and long would bump and grind their way downstream. Corey and I were positioned in the bow and stern doing our best to fend off the encroaching bushes. Pete and Keaton were behind us doing the same in their own raft. At one point half of the creek disperses into a beaver pond and the rest of the creek spills down through the bushes in a tangle of loosely defined channels. Nice. I’ve learned through the years to take the beaver pond route. An easy paddle over the pond takes you to the dam. A quick dismantling of a small section of the dam creates enough flow to literally “flush” us down and over the dam into navigable waters.
A few more bends in the creek would take us to our next camp and from here we could finally begin to hunt. At one point that night Keaton and I were sitting in front of the campfire. He had the thousand-yard gaze on his face as he slowly churned his gum. He was mesmerized by the fire and appeared to be in some kind of trance. As I watched, he pursed his lips producing a teal blue ball of gum which he then proceeded to expectorate into the flames just as his left hand slowly raised to his mouth with a fresh piece already unwrapped. “Keaton, what are you doing?” I asked barely able to contain my laughter. As if jabbed by a sharp stick he quickly came out of his trance and explained;
“It wasn’t minty anymore.”
Thanks Amanda.
The next morning had me up early and I took my coffee up onto the hill. Something caught my eye on the creek below and I turned to see a small two year old bull moose crossing the creek. From a little higher up on the hill I glass the lower valley for a few minutes until I noticed that the small bull had noticed me and wanted to know more. I had scoped out the valley well enough and decided to return to camp but this bull was making his way up to me. I decided to duck around a bush lower on the hillside hoping to lose him. Sure enough there he was chasing me down.
Bulls in the rut are a strange breed indeed. In his hormone induced state this guy was looking for a scrap! Since I wasn’t armed I (other than my coffee, which by now was less-than scalding) I figured that I should avoid confrontation with this disgruntled youngster. I ducked, hid, shuffled my way back to camp where Pete was now awake, with his own coffee and ready to glass. “Hey did you see that little bull?” I asked
“Yeah he ran past camp, he went up the creek.”
“Good.”
By now the boys were awake and after scarfing down some cold leftover spaghetti, we gathered our hunting packs and set out for the day.
It was indeed a great day for us that will not soon be forgotten. I will say that a certain amount of pride swelled in me when Corey was able to take down a large bull with the 30.06 that was handed down to me by my dad when I was his age. That evening, at this very camp, we would all return from a long day of hunting and feast on the juicy tenderloins of Corey’s first moose using our traditional kill-day recipe.
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| Corey's first moose |
Harrison kill day tenderloin recipe:
1 white onion
1 bell pepper
1 half pound bacon diced or chunked
4 sliced jalapenos
2 tbsp minced garlic
1 6 oz. bottle of soy sauce
Moose tenderloin medallions (enough for all)
Fry bacon in frying pan, add onions, all peppers and garlic. Saute until onions and peppers are soft. Remove all ingredients to another pot or plates temporarily leaving all bacon grease in the pan. Heat grease to just before smoking point before dropping the tenderloin medallions into hot oil. Since tenderloin is best rare to medium-rare flip meat after 1 minute or so. Add the rest of the sauted ingredients, dump in all of the soy sauce, bring up to a boil. Turn off the heat. Done. Serve over rice or mashed potatoes. ***It is important to thank the hunting gods while savoring in such a glorious meal.
The next morning Corey and I packed up camp while Pete and Keaton took off after another moose. A few hours later Corey and I floated down the valley and eventually caught up to them as they put the “sneaks” on a bull we could not see. I had Corey help me set up both tents and organize camp when suddenly we heard a shot ring out. We quickly grabbed our packs and set out to help. Sure enough Pete had killed another large bull less than a mile from our camp! We all cheered and hugged and eventually started the process of field dressing another big moose.
This had been an amazing trip and we all knew that our time in this valley was coming to a close. The next day we would pack up camp and float down to where we had dropped the meat. It would take us the rest of the day to float out to the road but we didn’t care too much about that. I spent a lot of time thinking about what a wonderful trip it had been to share with my son and I hoped that by the time hunting season rolls around next year he will want to go with me again.
