9/6/08
So, last week I bartended another wedding, and in typical Methow Valley fashion the whole affair ended sometime around 2300. I was left sitting around a fire all by myself until some company joined me, and we stared into the burning embers until the wee hours. When I woke in the morning, the long grass in which I slept was not covered with the anticipated frost, and I rolled over to see my friend Eric already working on cleaning up the site. I got up and helped him load all of his wife's catering stuff, and cleaned up the bar area.
After that, I drove down the valley and had a great meeting with a sort of internet marketing guru, who other than saying that he doesn't have a whole lot of actual support to offer me, gave me all sorts of encouragement and great ideas. So, fresh with enthusiasm, I have been pretty charged these days and am just about over the edge from where I can turn back with my tail between my legs and say, "yeah that was a great idea, but sometimes things just don't work out." So I am about 93% committed to this whole drewtube thing, and with it, the Vicarious Living Project, which, unless you're one of 10 people, you've probably heard nothing about, and probably won't here, because I have a storey way more interesting to tell.
So, after the meeting I went for a walk. It was kind of just a ramble, kind of a thing that I needed to do. There is some reading between the lines to be done here, which I can't really expound upon, but if you know me well, and are clever you might find a little more excitement to the storey, otherwise, just stay with the idea that I like to ramble through the woods on late August days.
To me, trails aren't really that fun, unless they lead to lakes full of non-native trout that you can catch with your hands. So I pulled off, onto the side of the road, in an area that I know well, and started to walk. I unhitched a barbed wire gate, and passed through it, closing it behind me, and turned off the road into the brush. Waist high Bitter Brush and Sagebrush scratched my shins as I navigated uphill. Cheat Grass seeds quickly populated my socks, and pretty soon, from the knees down I was a little uncomfortable.
I knew where I wanted to end up, but didn't really have a plan as to how to arrive, so I just zig-zagged from Aspen grove to Aspen grove, hoping to spook a buck, or maybe find a set of antlers or some other cool manifestation of nature, maybe a Giant Puffball. After about an hour I saw below me a beautiful strip of Aspens, Willows and Dogwood. It looked like an old Beaver zone, now abandoned and choked with vegetation, but still with a little bit of water. It looked like a place that ought to be explored, and so I headed down. This is the kind of place that critters like to hang out in, and I hoped to maybe see a roosting owl, or who knows.
The place was thick. In some areas, the Dogwood had grown so thick that it required crazy climbing techniques, and limbo moves just to get through. I usually like to creep through the woods, not making a sound, but that was impossible here. I was making so much noise just getting through the shit that I was sure I wouldn't see much, but the idea that there was a high likelihood that no human had been cruising though this grove, other than myself spurred me on. After about a half an hour I came to a more open area.
The sun was getting low in the hills, but the exposure was still good here. The creek was actually a creek here too, and the humus was black and thick. It was gorgeous. I stopped for a second to breath, and take in the hues of green as the sun shown through the various species of leaves draped overhead. I looked down, and right on the edge of the meter wide creek was a sight that made my heart jump a bit, and my blood flow a little faster. It was a track of the front right paw of a very large Black Bear. In the moist, black, fine particulate soil, the track was nearly perfect, and I could see even the imperfections and marks transferred from the pad of the paw into the substrate. It was such a perfect medium for a track that there was no telling exactly how fresh the track was, but it certainly wasn't more than 24 hours old. I put my hand down to measure, and the main pad was as big as my whole hand, if I bent my fingers a little bit.
I took a look around, and noticed that the brush had been crushed here and there, and there were little tunnels all about. The bear had frequented this spot, and it was kind of a surprise, and it got me in a bit of a prey state of mind. I told myself that there was little likelihood that the creature was still hanging around with all the noise that I had been making, so I put my head down and kept moving through the brush, kind of knowing where I was going, kind of just tramping around. In the crack of twigs, and the scrapes of my pack as it rubbed and pinched through crotches, and forks, and bending Dogwood to stand suspended over the ground, bouncing a little as I looked for the next footing, and wiping a spider's web from my nose I thought I heard something, almost a grunt, but a little less overt, maybe so not overt that it might have not happened at all.
I looked ahead and picked a route, and continued on. Was it my mind, or did I hear it again?? I've never really heard a bear vocalize before, except in cartoons, but I have heard one exhale pretty powerfully, through its nose, and I extrapolated what that voice might sound like had it come from the mouth, and what a bear might say, and I got myself a little more freaked out. It sure seemed like if they were actual noises that I was hearing, that might just be a bear, and if it was a bear, it might be saying something like, "Hgggh!" in a muffled, but emphatic enough tone, that I might interpret it is, "I'm over here, and you shouldn't be here", but I still wasn't sure, if it was real, or my brain. It seemed like it only happened when I was moving, so I decided not to move.
I stopped, suspended on some poor little tree, bent under my weight, and holding on to nearby branches, I took slow breaths through my nose, and listened. I figured that if I hung out for a few minutes, there was no way that a bear would be patient enough to not make some sort of noise, either another grunt, or maybe just move a little, so I would hear it. I perched there for at least 3 minutes, but it seemed like longer, and I didn't hear a thing. In my time there though, I spotted a soft primary from the right wing of a Long-eared Owl. It was perfect habitat for a Long-eared Owl, and lost my train of thought.
Not having heard a bear, I reasoned that there was no bear, and I punched through the thick into another opening. In the open patch I did not find what I was looking for, and not knowing what I was looking for, I turned toward the light of the open country, and crashed out of the patch, and back towards my car. I took a more direct route this time as I was thirsty, and upon reaching my car, I didn't even have to feel my pocket to remember that I had found a hole in my pocket that morning, and had put my lone car key in there, not remembering about the hole, and so I was not surprised at all when my fingers searched out my pocket, and feeling around felt no key there.
I had lost my main car key about 12 days earlier, and this had been my spare, which I had kept hidden outside of the cab. My spare's spare was tucked away in a little compartment inside the vehicle, me not having promoted it yet to its new position as first spare, which is housed outside of the cab. Damn it!!!! What a place to be locked out. I put my camera away, and began the long stroll down the dirt road toward the intersection where there is a post office and a general store and some people call a town. After a little over an hour I met a hunter who was out "scouting", as they call it. What scouting means is driving around with a couple of beers, and if no one is around, shooting at shit, or if you have integrity, it might actually mean just checking shit out for when the appropriate season opens, so you might have an idea where things are so you can blast at them, maybe with a couple of beers. I know, that's a terrible stereotype, oh well, I tell it as I see it. So the guy won't give me a ride, but he lets me use his cell, which remarkably has reception, and again remarkably, my friend answers on his end, but informs me that he has no car with which to pick me up. So I walked some more.
I finally made it to the town, well, not quite, but I made it to the small feed lot, just next to town, where the ground is so barren, and the air so thick with dust and cow shit, you swear you'd never eat that shit again, but my will is weak, but there is my buddy in a borrowed car to save my ass from walking anymore, and trying to wade across the river to cut off a couple of miles.
We got to his house, and I called AAA, and after some funny times, sipping on my beer, trying to help the operator navigate google maps to find the dirt road where my car is, he puts me on hold, and comes back, and on this Sunday night he has located a guy, that, get this, lives on the same road where my car is stranded, and if I can make it back to the general store, he'll pick me up and take me to my car.
So, I didn't even get through my whole beer, and I borrow my buddy's bike, and peddle to the store. The sun is gone now, but it's not dark yet, but the passing cars have their lights on, and after very little time a Red Chevy Blazer pulls up, and the guy assumes I'm the guy, as I'm the only person standing around there, and he opens the back door for me to hop in. I do so, and upon entering notice that the driver, and a passenger riding shotgun are dressed in Mossy Oak camo. We get to talking, going over why my car is where it is, and why they're dressed like they are, and It tell them that I was just cruising around in the hills, not scouting, and they make jokes about a Biologist out wandering in the hills during hunting season, and how there ought to be a special season just for that, and the guys would be issued shovels with the tag, so they can bury the body, and it's pretty apparent what kind of company I am now keeping. I didn't know that there was a season in progress, so I ask, and they say that it's bear season, and that they had been out all day, and in fact for weeks, not having seen anything, and they had just dropped their guns off, on their way to pick me up. Then, they ask if in my walk had I seen any wildlife sign. Stupidly, my tendency to be "one of the guys" kicked in, and I told them about my tracks, but not the rest, and they made some jokes about it probably being a squirrel track or something, and I didn't let on where it actually was, in fact I told them it was in a completely different direction, but they knew where my car was, but they probably didn't believe me anyway, and then the guy in shotgun yells, "stop the car", and soon, we're all looking at a big black shape in the dusk, and no word of a lie, we are staring into the abandoned beaver zone not 10 yards from where I was crashing around, and they can't tell yet, whether or not it's not just a huge burned over Ponderosa Pine stump, but I know that there aren't any Ponderosa Pine stumps anywhere near there, and I know without having to look harder, exactly what we're looking at. It's their fucking trophy, and apparently, I am not insane, and I was no more than 40 feet from a huge black bear.
I could see the thought processes happening in these goon's heads, and knowing that I'm a biologist, the conclusion came quick that they were not going to be able to rush home and get their guns and shoot this animal, but in a bit of a twist, the driver asks if I have binoculars, and I tell him that I do, and that they are in the unlocked part of my truck, and so we speed off to grab them, and come back, and there this beast is, standing there, awesome, and sniffing the air, looking toward us, figuring the threat quotient, and before too long, he bolts up the hill and away. We speculate on the size, and they say, "well maybe that was a bear track you saw after all". We figure that conservatively it was at least a 300 pounder, maybe the biggest they had seen.
The guy gets me into my truck in no time, and there is a little camaraderie, having shared such an experience, but out of obligation I have to be bit terse, knowing that they'll be up at 0400, getting out of their car, and cruising around through my special thicket hoping to pop a cap in that bear's ass, so they can hang its head on a wall, and maybe their genitals will grow a bit, and maybe their wives will love them a little more, and the guys will respect them a little more, and I just hope to god that the bear took a nice long walk that night and never came back, but I kind of doubt it.
So, last week I bartended another wedding, and in typical Methow Valley fashion the whole affair ended sometime around 2300. I was left sitting around a fire all by myself until some company joined me, and we stared into the burning embers until the wee hours. When I woke in the morning, the long grass in which I slept was not covered with the anticipated frost, and I rolled over to see my friend Eric already working on cleaning up the site. I got up and helped him load all of his wife's catering stuff, and cleaned up the bar area.
After that, I drove down the valley and had a great meeting with a sort of internet marketing guru, who other than saying that he doesn't have a whole lot of actual support to offer me, gave me all sorts of encouragement and great ideas. So, fresh with enthusiasm, I have been pretty charged these days and am just about over the edge from where I can turn back with my tail between my legs and say, "yeah that was a great idea, but sometimes things just don't work out." So I am about 93% committed to this whole drewtube thing, and with it, the Vicarious Living Project, which, unless you're one of 10 people, you've probably heard nothing about, and probably won't here, because I have a storey way more interesting to tell.
So, after the meeting I went for a walk. It was kind of just a ramble, kind of a thing that I needed to do. There is some reading between the lines to be done here, which I can't really expound upon, but if you know me well, and are clever you might find a little more excitement to the storey, otherwise, just stay with the idea that I like to ramble through the woods on late August days.
To me, trails aren't really that fun, unless they lead to lakes full of non-native trout that you can catch with your hands. So I pulled off, onto the side of the road, in an area that I know well, and started to walk. I unhitched a barbed wire gate, and passed through it, closing it behind me, and turned off the road into the brush. Waist high Bitter Brush and Sagebrush scratched my shins as I navigated uphill. Cheat Grass seeds quickly populated my socks, and pretty soon, from the knees down I was a little uncomfortable.
I knew where I wanted to end up, but didn't really have a plan as to how to arrive, so I just zig-zagged from Aspen grove to Aspen grove, hoping to spook a buck, or maybe find a set of antlers or some other cool manifestation of nature, maybe a Giant Puffball. After about an hour I saw below me a beautiful strip of Aspens, Willows and Dogwood. It looked like an old Beaver zone, now abandoned and choked with vegetation, but still with a little bit of water. It looked like a place that ought to be explored, and so I headed down. This is the kind of place that critters like to hang out in, and I hoped to maybe see a roosting owl, or who knows.
The place was thick. In some areas, the Dogwood had grown so thick that it required crazy climbing techniques, and limbo moves just to get through. I usually like to creep through the woods, not making a sound, but that was impossible here. I was making so much noise just getting through the shit that I was sure I wouldn't see much, but the idea that there was a high likelihood that no human had been cruising though this grove, other than myself spurred me on. After about a half an hour I came to a more open area.
The sun was getting low in the hills, but the exposure was still good here. The creek was actually a creek here too, and the humus was black and thick. It was gorgeous. I stopped for a second to breath, and take in the hues of green as the sun shown through the various species of leaves draped overhead. I looked down, and right on the edge of the meter wide creek was a sight that made my heart jump a bit, and my blood flow a little faster. It was a track of the front right paw of a very large Black Bear. In the moist, black, fine particulate soil, the track was nearly perfect, and I could see even the imperfections and marks transferred from the pad of the paw into the substrate. It was such a perfect medium for a track that there was no telling exactly how fresh the track was, but it certainly wasn't more than 24 hours old. I put my hand down to measure, and the main pad was as big as my whole hand, if I bent my fingers a little bit.
I took a look around, and noticed that the brush had been crushed here and there, and there were little tunnels all about. The bear had frequented this spot, and it was kind of a surprise, and it got me in a bit of a prey state of mind. I told myself that there was little likelihood that the creature was still hanging around with all the noise that I had been making, so I put my head down and kept moving through the brush, kind of knowing where I was going, kind of just tramping around. In the crack of twigs, and the scrapes of my pack as it rubbed and pinched through crotches, and forks, and bending Dogwood to stand suspended over the ground, bouncing a little as I looked for the next footing, and wiping a spider's web from my nose I thought I heard something, almost a grunt, but a little less overt, maybe so not overt that it might have not happened at all.
I looked ahead and picked a route, and continued on. Was it my mind, or did I hear it again?? I've never really heard a bear vocalize before, except in cartoons, but I have heard one exhale pretty powerfully, through its nose, and I extrapolated what that voice might sound like had it come from the mouth, and what a bear might say, and I got myself a little more freaked out. It sure seemed like if they were actual noises that I was hearing, that might just be a bear, and if it was a bear, it might be saying something like, "Hgggh!" in a muffled, but emphatic enough tone, that I might interpret it is, "I'm over here, and you shouldn't be here", but I still wasn't sure, if it was real, or my brain. It seemed like it only happened when I was moving, so I decided not to move.
I stopped, suspended on some poor little tree, bent under my weight, and holding on to nearby branches, I took slow breaths through my nose, and listened. I figured that if I hung out for a few minutes, there was no way that a bear would be patient enough to not make some sort of noise, either another grunt, or maybe just move a little, so I would hear it. I perched there for at least 3 minutes, but it seemed like longer, and I didn't hear a thing. In my time there though, I spotted a soft primary from the right wing of a Long-eared Owl. It was perfect habitat for a Long-eared Owl, and lost my train of thought.
Not having heard a bear, I reasoned that there was no bear, and I punched through the thick into another opening. In the open patch I did not find what I was looking for, and not knowing what I was looking for, I turned toward the light of the open country, and crashed out of the patch, and back towards my car. I took a more direct route this time as I was thirsty, and upon reaching my car, I didn't even have to feel my pocket to remember that I had found a hole in my pocket that morning, and had put my lone car key in there, not remembering about the hole, and so I was not surprised at all when my fingers searched out my pocket, and feeling around felt no key there.
I had lost my main car key about 12 days earlier, and this had been my spare, which I had kept hidden outside of the cab. My spare's spare was tucked away in a little compartment inside the vehicle, me not having promoted it yet to its new position as first spare, which is housed outside of the cab. Damn it!!!! What a place to be locked out. I put my camera away, and began the long stroll down the dirt road toward the intersection where there is a post office and a general store and some people call a town. After a little over an hour I met a hunter who was out "scouting", as they call it. What scouting means is driving around with a couple of beers, and if no one is around, shooting at shit, or if you have integrity, it might actually mean just checking shit out for when the appropriate season opens, so you might have an idea where things are so you can blast at them, maybe with a couple of beers. I know, that's a terrible stereotype, oh well, I tell it as I see it. So the guy won't give me a ride, but he lets me use his cell, which remarkably has reception, and again remarkably, my friend answers on his end, but informs me that he has no car with which to pick me up. So I walked some more.
I finally made it to the town, well, not quite, but I made it to the small feed lot, just next to town, where the ground is so barren, and the air so thick with dust and cow shit, you swear you'd never eat that shit again, but my will is weak, but there is my buddy in a borrowed car to save my ass from walking anymore, and trying to wade across the river to cut off a couple of miles.
We got to his house, and I called AAA, and after some funny times, sipping on my beer, trying to help the operator navigate google maps to find the dirt road where my car is, he puts me on hold, and comes back, and on this Sunday night he has located a guy, that, get this, lives on the same road where my car is stranded, and if I can make it back to the general store, he'll pick me up and take me to my car.
So, I didn't even get through my whole beer, and I borrow my buddy's bike, and peddle to the store. The sun is gone now, but it's not dark yet, but the passing cars have their lights on, and after very little time a Red Chevy Blazer pulls up, and the guy assumes I'm the guy, as I'm the only person standing around there, and he opens the back door for me to hop in. I do so, and upon entering notice that the driver, and a passenger riding shotgun are dressed in Mossy Oak camo. We get to talking, going over why my car is where it is, and why they're dressed like they are, and It tell them that I was just cruising around in the hills, not scouting, and they make jokes about a Biologist out wandering in the hills during hunting season, and how there ought to be a special season just for that, and the guys would be issued shovels with the tag, so they can bury the body, and it's pretty apparent what kind of company I am now keeping. I didn't know that there was a season in progress, so I ask, and they say that it's bear season, and that they had been out all day, and in fact for weeks, not having seen anything, and they had just dropped their guns off, on their way to pick me up. Then, they ask if in my walk had I seen any wildlife sign. Stupidly, my tendency to be "one of the guys" kicked in, and I told them about my tracks, but not the rest, and they made some jokes about it probably being a squirrel track or something, and I didn't let on where it actually was, in fact I told them it was in a completely different direction, but they knew where my car was, but they probably didn't believe me anyway, and then the guy in shotgun yells, "stop the car", and soon, we're all looking at a big black shape in the dusk, and no word of a lie, we are staring into the abandoned beaver zone not 10 yards from where I was crashing around, and they can't tell yet, whether or not it's not just a huge burned over Ponderosa Pine stump, but I know that there aren't any Ponderosa Pine stumps anywhere near there, and I know without having to look harder, exactly what we're looking at. It's their fucking trophy, and apparently, I am not insane, and I was no more than 40 feet from a huge black bear.
I could see the thought processes happening in these goon's heads, and knowing that I'm a biologist, the conclusion came quick that they were not going to be able to rush home and get their guns and shoot this animal, but in a bit of a twist, the driver asks if I have binoculars, and I tell him that I do, and that they are in the unlocked part of my truck, and so we speed off to grab them, and come back, and there this beast is, standing there, awesome, and sniffing the air, looking toward us, figuring the threat quotient, and before too long, he bolts up the hill and away. We speculate on the size, and they say, "well maybe that was a bear track you saw after all". We figure that conservatively it was at least a 300 pounder, maybe the biggest they had seen.
The guy gets me into my truck in no time, and there is a little camaraderie, having shared such an experience, but out of obligation I have to be bit terse, knowing that they'll be up at 0400, getting out of their car, and cruising around through my special thicket hoping to pop a cap in that bear's ass, so they can hang its head on a wall, and maybe their genitals will grow a bit, and maybe their wives will love them a little more, and the guys will respect them a little more, and I just hope to god that the bear took a nice long walk that night and never came back, but I kind of doubt it.