- Joined
- Jan 28, 2003
- Messages
- 13,355
I'm talking the most miserable cold/hot, hungry/ thirsty back breaking butt busting, gear destroying stuck truck, sick horse, crashed airplane or other type ordeal you've ever had to deal with the field?
I think my worst was many years ago as a teenager in the Rio Costillo area in NM. We had 8 cow permitts and me and two buddies shot three cows way back up a canyon during a full blown winter time blizzard. The wind was whipping at about 25 gusting to about 40.
In anycase we shot these three elk at about midday after we caught them on a hill side bedded down. Being young and stupid we made mostly bad decisions that day. Even being out where we were was a great risk due to the remotness and the weather.
After we got the elk on the ground we decided to push them into the bottom of the canyon because we thought that there was an accessable road at the mouth of it. So me and one other guy started to clean the elk and sent partner #3 for the truck.
In anycase to make along story shorter. We gutted all three elk then for some reason unkniown to me now we decided to skin them as well. I was soaked in blood and sweat by the time we were done and I started to get cold. We tried to start a fire but couldn't get one going. By this time I was shivering pretty bad.
I think this was about 3 hours into our wait. Turns out the the guy with the truck was stuck in a snow drift and wasn't coming at all. I remember sitting on a log and thinking to myself "if I could just go to sleep everything would be better" I was just getting past the shivering stage of hypothermia. Fortunaley my buddy figured out what was going on and forced me up and we walked out of the canyon about three miles.
I remeber feeling like my legs weighed about 200 lbs each but we made it back to camp eventually we found the truck got it unstuck and got back to camp.
The three day pack out was another story...
I think my worst was many years ago as a teenager in the Rio Costillo area in NM. We had 8 cow permitts and me and two buddies shot three cows way back up a canyon during a full blown winter time blizzard. The wind was whipping at about 25 gusting to about 40.
In anycase we shot these three elk at about midday after we caught them on a hill side bedded down. Being young and stupid we made mostly bad decisions that day. Even being out where we were was a great risk due to the remotness and the weather.
After we got the elk on the ground we decided to push them into the bottom of the canyon because we thought that there was an accessable road at the mouth of it. So me and one other guy started to clean the elk and sent partner #3 for the truck.
In anycase to make along story shorter. We gutted all three elk then for some reason unkniown to me now we decided to skin them as well. I was soaked in blood and sweat by the time we were done and I started to get cold. We tried to start a fire but couldn't get one going. By this time I was shivering pretty bad.
I think this was about 3 hours into our wait. Turns out the the guy with the truck was stuck in a snow drift and wasn't coming at all. I remember sitting on a log and thinking to myself "if I could just go to sleep everything would be better" I was just getting past the shivering stage of hypothermia. Fortunaley my buddy figured out what was going on and forced me up and we walked out of the canyon about three miles.
I remeber feeling like my legs weighed about 200 lbs each but we made it back to camp eventually we found the truck got it unstuck and got back to camp.
The three day pack out was another story...