Well, Mike is still in camp. Turns out, big horn sheep are as elusive - if not more - than elk! Weather played a part as well as a few other things. It's all good. He loves it there. And so did I! I relaxed. I remembered what it feels like to relax! Read an entire book in a day! The Bear was a great read and I liked it a bit more than its counterpart, The Road Both are stories about the end of the world - I know, right? Still, both were great reads. I always like Cormac's writing; even though it is dark and frightening! I read The Road when Mike was in camp a couple of weeks ago, lying in bed, gobbling up the words, imagining the destruction and terror until after midnight one night!! Crazy. Very unlike me!!
And I relaxed more. Days with long naps. A ride to look for sheep. Nights of constant patter on the tent, rain and more rain. When silence came, you knew the rain had turned to snow. And I wrote. I wrote pages and pages. Mainly about camp. If I ever scribe a book, it will be titled "The Best Chapter in Life" and it will be about wilderness/hunting camp. Below, you will find Part I. If you have time to read it, I warmly welcome and invite your thoughts in review.
Stories. There is time for stories in hunting camp. And when they are told, everyone listens! It's remarkable. Nothing is pulling anyone's attention away. Stories and good listeners. Wow.
Here are some photos. I never take enough pictures.
Part One
Nothing, yet everything is remarkable about this morning.
I sit basking in the morning sun in a camp deep within the Washakie Wilderness. I am the sole human being in camp. The other living warm blooded animals include four watchful dogs, sixteen head of stock - horses and mules - two loud chattering and somewhat obnoxious squirrels, and an occasional bird song. A flicker yak-yak-yaking in the distance off my left shoulder. A stellar jay squawks a commanding cry in the valley below.
Cabin Creek sings its mountain stream song, the omnipresent white noise of camp. Ned, the wrangle horse, wanders around weaving through the canvas tent landscape, eating the late fall grasses, the bell strapped around his neck sounds his location each time he moves.
The early morning fires, set to make coffee and warm tents, are mostly out. A breeze, gently wafting about, in no particular direction, carries hints of smoke from the stoves, still warm to the touch.
On the portable radio, the NOAA weather channel forecaster chatters on about a wet cold front bringing rain turning to snow for this evening. This long-lasting dry fall with 20 degree mornings and 75 degree days have parched the landscape. The trails are dusty, dried, and trodden. The dust is micro-fine, light in the air, surrounding the horses and their riders in a haze of floating dust. Some moisture would be a good thing for this water-starved landscape.
We are good friends with the owners of this camp. Their third year here. Seth and Alden work hard to bring a bit of civilization to their tiny spot in this enormous wild country.
The ride into the Elk Fork Camp is a pleasant nine mile ride. Ambling along the trail above the Elk Fork River, cottonwoods make their final season exclamation, shimmering in fluorescent yellows. The warm afternoon chinook wind peels off the leaves and makes a confetti show, leaves piling up on the dusty trail. The season of rest is coming soon.
Junipers appear along the trail, laden with purple berries and the smell of good gin. This landscape is surprisingly diverse; aspens, cottonwoods, junipers, pine, sage, grasses, wild roses make their living from the water the Elk Fork delivers. The river rolls down this wide canyon carving its way to meet the Shoshone River, the confluence down by the parking lot and the road. The road that makes its way to Cody or to Yellowstone National Park, depending on which way one turns. This road, a river of its own.
The work here is not work for the weak of body or spirit. The season begins mid-summer when the Elk Fork is big and roars carrying the winter's melt off downstream. Deep and fast, the river is dangerous. This river is crossed six times traveling into camp. The frigid spring run-off can push a horse and its rider off balance or tip a mule and her load plumb over into a torrent of fast-moving and powerful current. The river's spring time cacophony demands attention. Stock work to keep their footing as they make their way across stream, over unseen boulders, large and small, rounded by the river's persistent hands.
Fabric tents are erected under the support of logs cut and carried to the tent sites. Topped off with a canvas fly, these cloth four sided structures will shelter the weary and cover the dining table while coffee and meals are prepared and consumed. In all kinds of weather events.
To heat these fabric structures requires copious amounts of firewood. Dead trees must be felled using a crosscut saw. This saw, long bladed and shark toothed, is operated by a two person crew - one person pulling the other doing this same effort, come their turn. A push, rather than a pull, renders the saw into a flexible useless piece of equipment and the effort must start again. Pull, rest, pull, rest, pull, rest.
With this great effort and time, trees are dropped, rounds are cut, rounds are split, split wood is gathered and stacked. It is impossible to appreciate the work invested in a single stick of firewood until you grab the handle of a crosscut saw, spend an afternoon splitting rounds into firewood, pickup those enormous piles of wood and stack them in various tents.
Nothing here is simple. The oven does not just turn on, it too is heated by wood. Careful burning and flue adjustment is required to turn out a cake, a pan of brownies, or morning biscuits to sop up rich sausage gravy. Illumination is provided from fuel-fired Coleman lanterns, their silky mantel socks filling with fuel and glowing bright white in the darkening tent. The outhouse sits over a hole which must be dug and re-dug every spring. Water is fetched from Cabin Creek in galvanized pales. Sweet, cold water.
The day winds to an end. Lanterns are cranked off, stoves are dampened down, and sleeping bags are zipped up. Breath in, breath out. Wind rustles overhead in dead trees which seem far too close to the tent. The night sky is black and brilliant with stars and planets; the paintbrush-swath of the Milky Way traces through the sky. A meteor scratches a line across the sky landscape. One night while in camp, it is warm enough to sit with chin up, gazing into that great abyss above, pondering wild places and the frightening enormity of it all.
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