 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 
|
Just One More Hunt
Why would a card-carrying geezer punish himself on a brutal elk hunt in the Rockies? Because he still can, and because there will come a day when he can do it no more.
Philip Caputo
The Nursing Home Gang
After dinner, the hunters were assigned their guides. The two youngest, Rick and Tim, were given to Gary Francis, Duane's son-in-law (Black Otter Outfitters is very much a family enterprise). My tent mates, Bob and John, in their 40s, drew Delmer Cox, a well-traveled Canadian and licensed architect who, for reasons unknown, had become a hunting guide. Nolander and I, previously terrified that we would find ourselves trying to keep up with the comparatively youthful Cox or Francis, were pleased to be matched with our brother geezer, Dave Morton, a retired Forest Service ranger. Morton's head, innocent of hair except for a band of gray above his ears, and his-shall we say-less than killer abs were reassuring. We immediately dubbed ourselves "The Nursing Home Gang."
There are several disadvantages to camping out in the wilderness when you are of a certain age. Leaving a warm tent and sleeping bag to pee in the freezing dark in your socks and underwear is very disagreeable, but on my third trip outdoors since turning in, I tried to look on the bright side. The stars in those unsullied skies were as breathtaking as the 20-degree temperature. It was a view of the heavens that today's urbanites see only in photographs snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope.
In the light of the aforementioned stars, aided by flashlights and kerosene lamps, we mounted up at the old corral for the first day's hunt. Nolander, a retired air officer and now a defense contractor, works out regularly in a gym. Morton, of course, spends much of his time on horseback and hiking in the mountains, and I stay fit with a regimen of calisthenics, hiking, biking, riding, and kayaking. Nevertheless, each of us got into the saddle by slow, mechanical degrees, our movements reminiscent of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.
The stars were out again when we returned after a perfectly fruitless day. We got out of our saddles even more slowly than we'd gotten into them and walked to the dining tent as if our legs were jointless blocks of wood. Elk hunting ain't for sissies. Neither is getting old.
There was some uneasiness around the campfire that night. No one had seen an elk nor sign of one; no one had heard a rutting bull's bugle.
Morton opined that wolves, reintroduced to the Yellowstone region in the 1990s, accounted for the scarcity. "Ten years ago, there were almost 20,000 animals in this herd. It's down to around 6,000 today."
After dinner, the hunters were assigned their guides. The two youngest, Rick and Tim, were given to Gary Francis, Duane's son-in-law (Black Otter Outfitters is very much a family enterprise). My tent mates, Bob and John, in their 40s, drew Delmer Cox, a well-traveled Canadian and licensed architect who, for reasons unknown, had become a hunting guide. Nolander and I, previously terrified that we would find ourselves trying to keep up with the comparatively youthful Cox or Francis, were pleased to be matched with our brother geezer, Dave Morton, a retired Forest Service ranger. Morton's head, innocent of hair except for a band of gray above his ears, and his-shall we say-less than killer abs were reassuring. We immediately dubbed ourselves "The Nursing Home Gang."
There are several disadvantages to camping out in the wilderness when you are of a certain age. Leaving a warm tent and sleeping bag to pee in the freezing dark in your socks and underwear is very disagreeable, but on my third trip outdoors since turning in, I tried to look on the bright side. The stars in those unsullied skies were as breathtaking as the 20-degree temperature. It was a view of the heavens that today's urbanites see only in photographs snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope.
In the light of the aforementioned stars, aided by flashlights and kerosene lamps, we mounted up at the old corral for the first day's hunt. Nolander, a retired air officer and now a defense contractor, works out regularly in a gym. Morton, of course, spends much of his time on horseback and hiking in the mountains, and I stay fit with a regimen of calisthenics, hiking, biking, riding, and kayaking. Nevertheless, each of us got into the saddle by slow, mechanical degrees, our movements reminiscent of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.
The stars were out again when we returned after a perfectly fruitless day. We got out of our saddles even more slowly than we'd gotten into them and walked to the dining tent as if our legs were jointless blocks of wood. Elk hunting ain't for sissies. Neither is getting old.
There was some uneasiness around the campfire that night. No one had seen an elk nor sign of one; no one had heard a rutting bull's bugle.
Morton opined that wolves, reintroduced to the Yellowstone region in the 1990s, accounted for the scarcity. "Ten years ago, there were almost 20,000 animals in this herd. It's down to around 6,000 today."
| Comment on This
Article |
| We require all participants in interactive areas to accept the terms of the Bonnier Corporation subscriber agreement. Please read the agreement before making comments. When you click on the button above to submit your comments, you are indicating your acceptance of and are agreeing to adhere to the terms of the subscriber agreement. |
 |
