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Peninsula Daily News Port Angeles, Washington Copyright 2000 Eric Rush www.ericrush.com |
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What usually prompts me to say that to myself is some form of physical effort that isn’t quite as easy as it once was, or perhaps the observation that recovery time is longer the older I get. I packed light for what was to be one or two nights on the ridge between Copper Creek and the Dungeness River, south of Sequim in the Buckhorn Wilderness. The object of the hike was deer. A friend had been up there the week before and had seen not a hair. Lack of rain and days of sunshine had dried underfoot vegetation to the consistency of fresh corn flakes. He stayed up there one night and gave it up for the season. Rain the day and night before I started up the trail gave me hope. I carried only food to be eaten cold. Fires are prohibited up high, and I didn’t want the weight of stove and fuel. Even so, with the weight of my muzzle-loading rifle and other hunting essentials, my pack nudged 60 pounds. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken my espresso maker. I got my usual late start and reached level ground near 6,000 feet just before dark. As soon as I stopped moving, sweat felt like ice water. Wisps of cloud tumbled off to the southwest in the evening light, hurried on their way by dry, cold Canadian air. Frost formed in the meadow. I pulled long pants over my hiking shorts, ate cold chicken, and was asleep by 8:30. When I woke in the morning, showers of frost from the inside of my small ten assailed my bare skin as I struggled out of my bag and into my clothes. The thermometer on my pack read somewhere in the 20s. I don’t bother with breakfast most days, but I do like my morning coffee. I lit the candle stove I’d made from a soup can and, in less than an hour, I had my shot of espresso. My plan was to stay on the ridge crest and watch for deer climbing out of the trees in the valley to their beds in clumps of stunted trees high in the rocks. In years past, I’d observed them making their way up the slope all morning, so I didn’t worry about time spent making espresso. One advantage of old age is, it forces a hunter who likes to cover a lot of ground to slow down, to sit longer and more often, to watch more. I perched on a rocky pinnacle, called KONP on my cell phone to get the Seattle-Oakland score from the night before, and sat back in the sun to watch for deer. The first I saw didn’t see me, but it was too far away to see if it had any antlers, much less the three points required, even with 10-power binoculars. I sat and looked some more and saw a doe looking at me from perhaps 400 yards. She must have heard me talking on the phone. When I spotted the buck, he was bedded down on a deer trail directly below me. I was pretty sure I could see antlers, but I’d have to get closer to count points. My eyes have just enough astigmatism to make counting points difficult. Using the cover of a small ridge and scrub trees, I worked my way downhill under the curious gaze of the doe. A peek over the ridge confirmed a branched-antler buck. He still hadn’t seen me. One more move would put me close enough both to confirm whether he was legal and to shoot. When I crept over the ridge again, a large rock blocked my view. While moving to one side of it, my foot bumped a pebble down the rocky slope. The deer heard it and stepped into view. He looked at me long enough for me to gaze at the lovely, symmetrical rack—two perfect points on each side. “See you next year, buddy,” I whispered, and he disappeared in a huff, no doubt embarrassed that I’d gotten so close. I saw no more deer all morning. I could have stayed another night, but it was going to be cold again, and I reminded myself that I’m getting too old for this stuff. Can’t wait to do it again. |