Its been fun to see all those spots back east. I LOVE seeing where you all hunt. I'll add some photos later.
However, for me theres this one spot. I don't have any pictures...
Getting there requires a 3 hr truck ride, doesn't matter where from you leave. It has the isolated ignominy of being one the the most solitary spots in the least populated county of the least poulated state of the lower 48. 2 of those secluded hours are on an endles dirt (not gravel) road giving way to a two track, with nothing but miles of sagebrush hills interspresed by wildflowers for your eyes to process as they follow the ribbon along. Abstract Antelope, trickster coyote and iconic bison are spotted on the horizon melting into spacious blue skies filled with gossamer clouds, all of which beckon your soul like a feather bed to drink it in and rest from the moment.
After weeks in waiting, entombed in the chains of a babylonian office, this vast awakening of reality, which our minds can not take in momentarily, serves as palladium to the weary spirit longing for solitude, rest. This drive down rugged, rutty roads serves to jar the sense from hustle-bustle into the peace only to be had by a lazy afternoon underneath mother natures canopy. That quality is somehting we must attain in order to really feel the solitude there being offered like caloric sustenance to a weary being. As has been said, nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
Eventually, the mountains are seen looming in the horizon, growing everpresent and larger wtih each passing mile. This time traveling is to prepare me for what is to come.
Arriving at the base and finally succombing to locking in the hubs of my four wheel drive, the first major ford washes my jeep like baptism, opening the gate and preparing the course for proper entrance into that kingdom.
I've been there coutless times, but still to this day my heart will race as I approach the parking spot. I call it '5 mile', as it is that distance from the turn off from the 'big road' onto the sorry excuse for a cattle trail traveled. The place to leave the vehicle is itself rather lonesome, with no fanfare, sign or wide spot in the road to announce its presence. Only the memories in my singular mind mark this place as a jumping off point for exodus. Ineveitably I reach this spot late at night in aphotic existence of sight through hi-beams, slowing down with the window wide open, hearing my tires creep to a stop over dirt and rocks that havent percieved rubber for weeks.
My seat kicked back I settle into a restless night beneath the mountain, listening to the lonely night sounds of aspen leaves on the breeze, owl, cricket, and coyote singing with the occasional unitelligible shriek of what must be something in pain in the far off distance as if only to give a sense of its deepeness.
Mercifully jolting awake before the sun ever begins to throw its rays across the golden vista of leaves freckled with evergreen, I can't stand it anymore and get on the trail. Strapping on my pack with stick in hand my feet start moving the 4 miles and change up the interminable ridge it will take to get to 'the hole'. After what seems like an eternity of again following a single ray of light cast by my headlamp, nearly two hours of grappling with what can't be seen and only barely surmising what can, I inevitably get to the crest just at that point when a black sky begins to blush.
Resting on a rock I have rest my backside on before I can't help but be overwhelmed by the stillness of this place. The wind has died, the crickets grew tired and even the quakin aspen are no longer quakin. A skyline of jagged mountains across the valley have taken shape now and I realize that for all the stillness around me, I must be going. Even as the curtain seems to be being raised, another quarter mile must be covered before I can be present for the show.
Downward, plunging into a north facing slope of timber, dark at noon day, but down right ominous during the witching hour. I feel a chill on my neck, announcing the presence of a light miasmic mist of fog, slowing my pace but heightening the awareness of all my senses like a wire connecting synapses of environment with spiritual self. Sentinels scratching and clawing at me like fingers trying to hold me back, pine trees being to fill the air with there smell, my path with their presence. Barely they can now be seen, nay felt, all around me, with only so much color of an Ansel Adams photo, still in the dark-room, now reaching them.
I settle in, taking in this moment. My mind drifting to somewhere outside of me, breath slowing to match the pace of the world around me as it awakens from its still ensconced stillness, breath inhaling organic life in the air.
Finally catching up to this exodus I have been on, the painstaking, not patient, wait of the year behind me, I am nearly overwhelmed by how alone and quiet I man can still be in a world of loud and crowd. Just as I begin to fade out and increase that sense of being with a truly wild space once again, just as my mind begins to settle like dust to its native habitat, just as my breath feels symbiotic with the ethereal air around me, the show begins...
That air I have just gained is ripped out of my lungs, hair standing on end, pulling the corners of my lips to a smile, as the nasally song of the numen of the woods reverberates like so many bolts of energy into all that lives rooted in this earth. Screaming high pitched then loud and deep, the strength of 7 winters behind it, a bull announes the presence of a drama unfolding, the prize being no less then life and death.
With his song complete, this place too is whole. And I know am part of something very few get to witness, or allow themselves to be a part. Something so real, alive and deep it can't be man-made. Men can't be here, can't call it home, without giving of themslves and their own prideful nature. Even if they walk here, it can't be really expereinced without the humility to let go, allowing the god of nature to be at once in charge.
Topic: Most beautiful woods you have hunted in? (Read 2197 times)
