"If there is a skiff down here at the river, there will probably be feet of snow on top of the mountain," I told mike while making sandwiches for our packs. "Looks like a snowmobile day!"
Everyone is excited about riding the machines in, as our muscles from yesterday's hike are so sore we can hardly walk on them. Mikes knee seems to be much better but without going down hill he is not sure how it is going to handle the day.
Our two diesel trucks grind their way up the steep mountain road to a gate allowing snowmobile only traffic on an old logging road system. While turning around with the sled trailer I find myself very stuck in the fresh snow.
We unload all the snowmobiles but I am still very much stuck. With daylight quickly approaching and our hunting time slipping away, we are forced to winch my truck out of the snow and complete the turn around.
It is a four mile ride into our hunting area with the sleds, but we run out of snow at about mile three. The hike once again begins.
We split up and hunt hard all day with only one herd of elk spotted by Gary and Nick. No elk on the ground. Trailering my snowmobile for the ride back to camp, the pull rope unties and sucks back into the machine! "You've got to be kidding!" I whine.
Back to camp at zero-dark-thirty! We are tired and still sore from our hikes. The first order of business is to get my pull rope on the sled fixed. We have to remove the exhaust system and then gently pull the rope out of the starter, then feed it up a long spring to the outside of the machine. Everything back in place we make a couple pulls on the rope just to make sure.
Supper is late and we crash into bed after eating around the roaring fire. We try our best to dry out clothing, boots, and socks by the fire each night. There is heat in the trailers but with four guys per unit, there is not much room to hang drippy clothing.
Day three wakes us with a surprise. Snow! Heavy snow on the ground in camp and snow falling like crazy.
"At least we know we will be able to get the machines as low on the mountains as we need with this new snow," Gary comments.
We are excited. This is the snow our hunt is needing.
We get to the bottom of the mountain and decide to launch the snowmobiles right there. It is snowing hard and the steep mountain road can be very treacherous with the heavy snowmobile trailer pushing a truck on the way back down.
Our four mile ride just became about ten miles.
Snow plasters us as we ride to the hunting area.
We split up and hunt hard, but the driving snow does not allow for spotting elk at any distance at all and no one observes anything.
Wet and cold we meet at the snow machines and get a good fire going. We warm up and dry out a bit before making the long ride back to the trucks. The hunt from hell is living up to its reputation.
No elk, every day struggles with machines, nasty weather... just what the doctor ordered... for crazy guys!
to be continued...
Nick, Mike, Gary, and Jimmy thawing out at the snowmobiles before the ride out.
No comments:
Post a Comment