Wayne in BC
New member
`Curiously, the hunger pangs could not be satisfied with some fish, onions, and bannock. Not after two days of hard work with the same fare every meal!
August 26/85
I took two of my guides for a week long trip to the hunting camp high in the Alberta Rockies to prepare the site for my clients starting Sept/1st. Lots of work to do, cutting a couple cords of deadfall for firewood. Setting up 4 wall tents in the main camp, as well as preparing the "latrine"
Also 3 "Spike camps" to set up, each one several hours by horse from the main camp.
On this first trip to these camps we would walk most of the time and like all good cowboys we purely hated leading a perfectly good horse!
but the trails would grow in with brush along with the constant windfalls of larger trees every summer, i never could get a horse to set still when i used a chainsaw! Sooooo...... one riding and leading horses, the other two sawing and chopping, long back breaking work in high thinner air!(7000 ft and up)
The first day we covered the 120 miles from my home by noon and unloaded our 5 horses (2 extra pack horses) the ride in from the trucks to base camp took about 3 hours, and by 4 pm we were unloaded with the horses grained and hobbled in the 20 acre meadow next to camp. With poles already there we managed to set up three 12x14 tents and the 14x16 kitchen/loafing tent before we played out at dusk. Being tired we did not bother to cook, quaffing a few "brown pops" and ate some weiners+beans, (always liking to compete with the horses:blush
before turning in. Tomorrow we would head out at dawn to cut trails and prepare a couple spike camps with firewood, it would be a long tough day.
I woke an hour before daylight to the warm and welcome smell of coffee and bacon, and looked up to see "Tom" my young and excellent guide, cooking on the coleman stoves, yep both of them, one for the oversize pan with bacon and eggs, the other for coffee and hotcakes! He sure had a way of endearing himself that young fella did! Gary, my second guide was stirring and drooling also We soon had the gear rounded up, rattled the "oat bucket" (actually barley/oats/molasses) for the horses, and by daylight were a mile up the west trail and cutting willows in the creek valley. It was necessary to use these same trails as there was too many areas that were impassable to horses on the steep sides of the valley.
There was bear sign everywhere and the horses blew and snorted regularily, they just hate the smell of a bear. We saw 3 different black bears on the hillsides scrounging roots and berries in the first couple miles. Though we hated the thieving troublemakers we ignored them, they were no threat and would be an "extra" for some of my hunters who wanted them.
There was always something about the smell of that country that i miss with an ache!, pungent Sage mixed with Pine, Lupine and Fireweed, Willow, Larkspur, and Daisies. Musty leaves and sweet grasses intermixed with mountain Laurel and dwarf Fir. Dozens of scents i knew well but did not know the name of the plant. Close your eyes and think of your favorite wilderness.....you know just what i mean. right?
Along about mile three i was swearing and muttering, we had come upon a BIG windfall that had trashed the trail for several hundred feet making it impassable to man or horse without a whole lot of "chainsquaw" work! One of those great gusts of wind that roar through the passes at 60-80 mph had picked MY trail! As i stood there angrily thinking of the work ahead i nearly shot a bear! In retrospect i should have:veryangry: My eye caught movement above us, maybe 50 yards away in a little opening. I thought at first it was an Elk so shushed my boys and taking my binoculars from the saddlebag i leaned on a tree next to my horse and adjusted the focus.
The sight that met my eyes was startling to say the least, i had thought Elk as the color was about right, but what i was looking at was a HUGE "blonde" colored Black Bear! Close to the largest i had seen in that area! I whispered to the guys and they also got looking, making impressed noises also. I said, well boys, when "Alabama Bob" (true! honest!) gets here next week he may just want this big bruiser, he turned down two good Blackies last year, wanting a "colored" bear.
I had just got that out of my mouth when the goofy bear turned in a circle, sniffed the air and came running straight for us! In about as long as it takes to say it we had a stampede happening as the horses caught both the scent of the bear and the sight of him acomin! I ripped the Browning 338 win mag from the scabbord as my horse spun away and.....
Continued soon.....
August 26/85
I took two of my guides for a week long trip to the hunting camp high in the Alberta Rockies to prepare the site for my clients starting Sept/1st. Lots of work to do, cutting a couple cords of deadfall for firewood. Setting up 4 wall tents in the main camp, as well as preparing the "latrine"
Also 3 "Spike camps" to set up, each one several hours by horse from the main camp.On this first trip to these camps we would walk most of the time and like all good cowboys we purely hated leading a perfectly good horse!
but the trails would grow in with brush along with the constant windfalls of larger trees every summer, i never could get a horse to set still when i used a chainsaw! Sooooo...... one riding and leading horses, the other two sawing and chopping, long back breaking work in high thinner air!(7000 ft and up)The first day we covered the 120 miles from my home by noon and unloaded our 5 horses (2 extra pack horses) the ride in from the trucks to base camp took about 3 hours, and by 4 pm we were unloaded with the horses grained and hobbled in the 20 acre meadow next to camp. With poles already there we managed to set up three 12x14 tents and the 14x16 kitchen/loafing tent before we played out at dusk. Being tired we did not bother to cook, quaffing a few "brown pops" and ate some weiners+beans, (always liking to compete with the horses:blush
before turning in. Tomorrow we would head out at dawn to cut trails and prepare a couple spike camps with firewood, it would be a long tough day.I woke an hour before daylight to the warm and welcome smell of coffee and bacon, and looked up to see "Tom" my young and excellent guide, cooking on the coleman stoves, yep both of them, one for the oversize pan with bacon and eggs, the other for coffee and hotcakes! He sure had a way of endearing himself that young fella did! Gary, my second guide was stirring and drooling also
We soon had the gear rounded up, rattled the "oat bucket" (actually barley/oats/molasses) for the horses, and by daylight were a mile up the west trail and cutting willows in the creek valley. It was necessary to use these same trails as there was too many areas that were impassable to horses on the steep sides of the valley.There was bear sign everywhere and the horses blew and snorted regularily, they just hate the smell of a bear. We saw 3 different black bears on the hillsides scrounging roots and berries in the first couple miles. Though we hated the thieving troublemakers we ignored them, they were no threat and would be an "extra" for some of my hunters who wanted them.
There was always something about the smell of that country that i miss with an ache!, pungent Sage mixed with Pine, Lupine and Fireweed, Willow, Larkspur, and Daisies. Musty leaves and sweet grasses intermixed with mountain Laurel and dwarf Fir. Dozens of scents i knew well but did not know the name of the plant. Close your eyes and think of your favorite wilderness.....you know just what i mean. right?
Along about mile three i was swearing and muttering, we had come upon a BIG windfall that had trashed the trail for several hundred feet making it impassable to man or horse without a whole lot of "chainsquaw" work! One of those great gusts of wind that roar through the passes at 60-80 mph had picked MY trail! As i stood there angrily thinking of the work ahead i nearly shot a bear! In retrospect i should have:veryangry: My eye caught movement above us, maybe 50 yards away in a little opening. I thought at first it was an Elk so shushed my boys and taking my binoculars from the saddlebag i leaned on a tree next to my horse and adjusted the focus.
The sight that met my eyes was startling to say the least, i had thought Elk as the color was about right, but what i was looking at was a HUGE "blonde" colored Black Bear! Close to the largest i had seen in that area! I whispered to the guys and they also got looking, making impressed noises also. I said, well boys, when "Alabama Bob" (true! honest!) gets here next week he may just want this big bruiser, he turned down two good Blackies last year, wanting a "colored" bear.
I had just got that out of my mouth when the goofy bear turned in a circle, sniffed the air and came running straight for us! In about as long as it takes to say it we had a stampede happening as the horses caught both the scent of the bear and the sight of him acomin! I ripped the Browning 338 win mag from the scabbord as my horse spun away and.....
Continued soon.....
