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Trouble a Foot…a big un!
By admin | December 4, 2007
I just had to share with you all, this experience from the last time I was campin. It will be hard to believe, and I’ve been a little hesitant to mention it, but I swear over my last straight arrow it is ttttrrroooo! (It caused me to stutter some)
It was a clear, cool, star twinkled night atop the Cache Forest. I peered into the darkness from the security of the canvas wall tent door towards the soul piercing chatter/scream type sound that came from somewhere south of my tent location. “That was one big pine squirrel”, I said to Rich. Rich hadn’t heard a peep. He was dead to the world in sleep. A few hours earlier he’d stumbled into camp looking a bit like he’d been ship wrecked for a couple of years. He was mumbling something about gorillas, bears, fast women and southern cousins. I couldn’t put any of it together. I figured he’d ran out of water, dehydrated some, and got into all the down fall in Tuffs Canyon while chasin elk, so I blew most of it off. A quick meal of skillet fried grouse, smothered in onions and wild mushrooms seemed to stabilize his rantings and put him off to sleep. It left me wondering about the chemical make up of these little birds…or maybe the mushrooms. The meal seemed to have the same calming effect on Rich that Ultimate Roast Turkey does on me. It’s rare that a pine squirrel calls at night, but this one was pretty persistent.
I faded off to sleep. In the gray light of dawn I stumbled sleepily from the tent and sat the coffee pot on the Camp Chef Explorer stove only to hear it fall to the ground with a clank! Rubbing the slumber from my eyes, it became apparent that my mis-calculation of landing the pot was due to the absence of the stove! “Well, what some low life came in the night and stole the stove. Must have been the presence of the intruder that had the squirrel so upset”, I fussed. That is the difficulty of the portability of the stove. It’s just too easy to haul around! For years I’d put up with hauling of a full size BBQ around to camps and tail gate parties, and not once was one stolen! If there where challenge in that, besides the narrow menu of use, it was finding enough help to move it around! Then enough rope to keep it upright in the pickup bed and off of I-15. But the thief had made a mistake. This was bowhunting camp….if I liked to do one thing more than cooking on the bow camp it was “trackin”! And now I had something to track, first rattle out of the box this morning! What a way to start the morning! I tried to enlist Rich’s help, but he covered his head and whimpered something about big and black followed by a resounding “NO” which led me to believe I was on my own on this one.
I’d better take a weapon, no telling how I was out numbered. I may not be able to slip in and take it back without a fight. (people get that way about having Camp Chef products) The bow and arrow were out of the question. I’m not fond of an extended stay in jail. I just wanted to maim em a little, so they’d think over their ill fated decision while they healed. On the table was the square cooking iron we used for building sandwiches; a great tool in close. The 10 inch dutch oven lid I’d used to bring down several running rabbits and grouse for the pot, so I figured that would heal em in a chase.
The drag marks of the tank bouncing along behind the stove was pretty easy to follow even in the hard pan. I wasn’t seeing much of the vermons’ tracks in the rain sparse soil. Must have been just one and he’d left in a hurry. From time to time I could make out what I thought this two legged rat was wearing slippers (must have been why I didn’t hear em). I’d about decided that some unfortunate camper just had had enough of trying to cook on their green machines and the frustration over took em, as the trail left the primitive camp sights and headed North. I can pretty much over look a situation of frustration and write off that they borrowed the stove. It had happened before and the stove turned up the next day. But I was coffee poor and hot on the trail like burgers on the grill box!
The trail led into a dark timbered canyon. I thought it odd that someone had a camp down in this hole, didn’t even know there was a road into it. The place always made the hair stand up on the back of my neck when I passed around it chasing elk. Even the elk wouldn’t go through it. I’d come to a fork in the trail and was trying to decipher the trail when a puff of breeze brought the smell of coffee, close coffee, to my caffeine robbed nostrils. “I’ve got you now”, I thought, as I busted through the willow thicket like a hound after a coon, cooking iron raised and ready to swat the thief/thieves silly! The terror and apology in his eyes brought me quickly to a halt. I dropped my irons and took the cup of coffee offered from his hand. Setting myself gingerly on a stump with my eye’s still locked on the trouble maker in disbelief. I couldn’t help but notice how instantly calm the situation had become with the offering from the stove. After exchanging a few pleasantries and scheduling a time for a more formal dinner and conversation, I climbed the mountain back to camp.
Rich was up…and the camp was coming down. “What’s up?”, I ask. “I’m leaving, and you should, too if you knew what was good for you, you’d git!” “I ran into a monster of sorts last evening just below camp and it was all I could do to get away and make it in last night”.”Me to”, I replied. “It’s ok now, he and the missus will be over for lunch about noon so put the table and chairs back out”. Rich stared in disbelief! “It’s ok”, I said. “He had had it with the green machine, and just couldn’t help himself”! Some things even Big Foot can’t overcome in the woods.
Topics: General Discussion | 1 Comment »
December 4th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Love it! Keep it coming!