I love hunting. Next to fishing it is one of my favorite pastimes. Being out in the woods and fresh air, pitting your intelligence against the instincts of an animal. Sounds easy, except that they do it every day and you're playing on their turf. Makes it much more difficult than most people think. When a buddy called from Colorado with a chance to go elk hunting in the winter, I jumped at the chance. He had a cabin high in the mountains we would use as the base camp, and then venture out after the elk, using snowmobiles to get from mountain top to mountain top. It sounded like a blast. I loaded my hunting gear up and headed out, following the directions he gave me and my GPS.
The weather report was for a light snow, which didn't sound too bad when I left Missouri, but after many hours of driving I was getting tired and was ready for the trip to be over when the first flakes hit the windshield. That light snow seemed to be awfully big flakes, but then I wasn't really worried, my four wheel drive would go through anything I had ever pitted it against. As I wound into the mountains on the twisting two lane highway, the number of homes slipped from the frequent to the occasional. The snow, which was forecast for only a few inches kept coming down, making the road more and more difficult to see in the growing darkness. It also didn't help that the heavy snow was interrupting the GPS signal making it almost useless. It kept jumping around telling me I was first on one road and then in the middle of nowhere.
If I hadn't been so tired I might have noticed the sign, caked with blowing wet snow, that showed a ten mile per hour corner. I might even have slowed down if I realized there was a corner there, but the first thing I saw was the guardrail almost ninety degrees to the road I thought I was on. I jerked the wheel hard over, and slammed on the brakes, but even at thirty five miles an hour, there was no saving it.
My truck plowed through the guardrail, crunching metal and snapping wood posts before careening down an embankment that seemed almost vertical. The air bag did its thing and low and behold I survived, bruised and shaken, but alive. I peeled myself out my now ruined truck and looked at the trip I had made. I wasn't the first one to mow down trees here. I checked my cell, and surprise... no service. The chances of being found here were slim at best.
I decided I'd head along the road on foot and see if I could find a house or something. I left a note, pulled on all my winter hunting gear, hefted my pack and long gun, and started the arduous climb up the slope to the highway, the darkness broken only by the small LED light clipped to my pack strap. The winter wonderland looked peaceful, but I knew that was far from true. I loaded rounds into my Winchester and slid it into the scabbard on the side of my pack. Clipping the waist and sternum belts I began to trudge through the foot deep snow heading up the mountain. I hoped I'd come across a house or something before too long.
Before too long just never happened. I stopped after half an hour and pulled out my mask and goggles and changed my gloves for my heavy insulated mittens. With every inch of my body now covered, I continued up the road, wondering how long I would be out here and glad that the snow and cloud cover were holding the temperatures at something tolerable.
I must have hiked up that road for two hours, stopping every thirty minutes to take a rest and a drink, before I lights flickering in the falling snow. It seemed like forever before I got closer, and then realized that the lights were not along the road, but on the other side of a small gorge. Through the occasional light spots in the falling snow I could see what looked like a small cabin. I had a decision to make, continue on the road and hope to find another place, or venture off the road into the wilds. There was no telling how hard the climb down and back up would be, or how deep the gorge was. It looked like there was a small dirt road that went that direction, all I could do was hope it led to the lights. Taking a deep breath, I turned off the highway and started down the steep road.
The road proved to help some, guiding me until I lost it under the deep snow collecting in the gorge. By the time I got to the bottom I was slogging through snow up to my waist, wondering if this was really a good idea. Having hit the bottom, I decided that I might as well go up the other side rather than head back to the road, and began the climb up the steep slope. The climb turned out to be much worse than I had expected, and was soon sweating profusely and completely exhausted. I couldn't go back down, there was no shelter in the deep snow in the bottom, and the slope was so steep that I was often having to use all fours to keep my balance on the rocks that were hidden under the snow. What was worse, I knew that as heavily as I was sweating, I needed to peel layers, but the slope was much too steep to try that. I resigned myself to continue the climb, and hope that there was shelter on top.
I finally made the top of the hill after nearly an hour of hard climbing. I flopped down in the snow, trying to catch my breath and cursing getting old, as if forty was really all that old. After several minutes I could feel the cold seeping into my clothes where the sweat had soaked them, and decided I better either find shelter or I was going freeze to death. I was experienced in winter survival. I had no doubt that I could make myself a snow cave and hole up, but building a fire to dry my clothes would be difficult with this wet snow. Fortunately the lights I had seen were only a short ways down the ridge I was now laying on. I picked myself up and wearily trudged down toward the lights.
As I drew closer I could see the lights were from the windows of a small log cabin, smoke curling gently from the stone chimney. The setting looked idyllic and tranquil as the heavy flakes continued to fall. Taking a breath I knocked on the door, expecting some grizzled old man to open the door and tell me to get lost. I was shocked when the face greeting me was anything but grizzled and old. I figured her for thirty or so, obviously oriental with fairly long dark hair cascading over the shoulders of a white fluffy bath robe. She was a few inches shorter than I was, and filled out the robe both around and in front enough to know she wasn't fat or thin, just pleasant sized, with a respectable sized chest.
Why, when I was half frozen to death, I bothered to check out her tits instead of pulling off my mask and goggles and asking for help, is beyond me, but that's what I did. She broke me from my stupor by asking what I wanted, the look on her face almost as startled at finding someone at her door as I was at finding a good looking woman out here.
"Oh, sorry. I had a wreck down the mountain a bit and started hiking. Do you have a phone I can use?" I asked, pulling my hood back and pulling off my mask and goggles so she could see my face.
"You're kidding right?" she asked with an odd look on her face.
"No maam. I went off the road on a sharp curve down the road a ways and walked this far."
"Ok, besides being crazy, how did you get here?"
"I saw the lights from the highway and hiked over."
"Through the bottom? That's not possible. The snow down there is easily ten feet deep this time of year."
"Well, it was a bit deep, but I made it. Do you mind if I come in and warm up and call my buddy and tell him where I am?"
She stepped back and let me in, closing the door behind me. The cabin was indeed small, being little more than a long room with a few pieces of furniture, a wood burning stove to cook on and a stone fireplace with a fire gently crackling away. Along one wall were a couple long curtains that appeared to block off two small rooms. All in all it looked like the kind of place you'd see in an old western movie.
"Now, just who are you?" She asked as she stood back in the glow of the oil lamp and looked at me.
"Oh, sorry. Mike Michaels. I'm headed up to Grizzly ridge to meet a buddy to hunt. Like I said, I missed a turn and went off the highway."
"I'll say you went off the road. Grizzly ridge is about twenty miles south of here. The highway stopped miles ago. That sharp turn was the end of the road. This is all private property."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. I guess I got turned around some. If you have a phone I'm sure he can come get me."
"Do you see a phone? No, I'm afraid that your friend is going to have to do without you tonight. I can take you down the mountain tomorrow on a snowmobile. The question is what to do with you tonight?"
"Well, if you don't mind, I'd be perfectly happy to sleep on the floor. I don't want to put you out, I'm just happy to be in out of the snow."
"Ok. Start getting out of those wet things. We can hang them on a line and get them dried out. She said, turning and walking to a wooden box on the floor and digging out a length of rope. She strung the rope across the small cabin while I started peeling off my wet hunting gear.
"You are wet!" she said as she took my gear, one item at a time and hung them over the line.
"Yeah. That climb was pretty rough."
"I bet. I'm surprised you made it at all. The trail is pretty hard to follow." She said as I handed her my sweatshirt, leaving me in my jeans and t-shirt.
"I couldn't find a trail. I just came up the side." I said as I picked up my pack and set it against the wall by the door so the snow melting off of it wouldn't make a mess.
"You're either lucky or just plain crazy. That climb isn't to be taken lightly on a good day, let alone like it is now."
"Well, I made it." I said with a shrug.
"Come on. I can see that the pants and shirt are wet too." She said holding her hand out.
"This is all I have to wear." I said somewhat defensively.
