It seems winter finally got around to visiting Mississippi over the weekend. Temperatures at my house Monday morning were a balmy 31-degrees with a light layer of frost covering my bedroom windows and blanketing my car struggling to exit my cocoon of blankets, weighted down by my two trusty dogs who flat out refused to move, I recalled Strawberry Bench, when I would never be warm again.
In 2004, my father got the silly notion into his head he wanted to go elk hunting. Neither of us is a hunter, but after a half dozen years in Colorado, being late every winter because 100 elk are blocking the highway to lick salt off the road, shooting one of them starts to seem pretty appealing.
We spent the summer preparing, going through hunter education training, applying for elk tags – Colorado uses a lottery system similar to alligator hunting here – and watching an old VHS tape about elk hunting borrowed from the local library. Dad, having been a boy scout, researched reasonably distanced public hunting lands and decided upon Strawberry Bench, a wooded plateau in Arapahoe National Forest.
The time of our hunt upon us, we packed up the family’s 1962 Jeep Grand Cherokee dad had found on Ebay a few years prior and headed to our camp ground. That night it snowed 8 inches. I had packed shorts and sandals.
Now, Strawberry Bench is a whole different world from Mississippi. Our campground was only about half a mile from our hunting ground, but it was a lot lower, too. The half-mile trek to the top of the plateau had an elevation change of almost 1000 ft. It wasn’t quite straight up, but it was close. Slipping and sliding in the fresh snow – and very cold, wet socks – we made it to the top of the hill, waited all day, saw nothing and walked, slid, fell back down the mountainside to our tent. It snowed another 4 inches that night.
After two days of wandering around in the woods in wet socks and sandals, I was done, and dad, though reluctant to admit it, was done too. We packed up the car, turned the key and nothing happened. I’m still somewhat hazy on what a flywheel is, but there’s never been a doubt in my mind it broke on purpose.
Cell service in a Colorado national forest isn’t much better than it is here, so we hiked a few miles down the road, called a tow truck and waited for a driver bored enough to cart us, our hunting equipment and our broken-down rust bucket back home, about 150 miles. I was all for ditching the car at that point, but dad was sure he could fix it once we got home.
My first hunting trip was two days of miserable, cold, wet, nasty torment, but 8 hours after we hopped into the cab of a Jim’s Towing and Wrecker Service, we hit the trifecta of failures. Pulling onto our road, just 500 feet separating us from hot showers and dry clothes, we had to stop and wait as those 100 elk blocked the way, licking the salt off the road.
Last Saturday, I went hunting for the second time. This trip went remarkably well, and I’m looking forward to trying out some venison recipes in a few weeks. While cold, it was nothing like Strawberry Bench - no car trouble, and I wore boots this time. Plus, there weren’t any deer in my yard when I got home.
I’m sure in a few days, maybe a week at the most, the weather will turn, and temperatures will rise. Until then, I’m grateful for blankets, space heaters and puppy dogs, but mostly I’m thankful this isn’t Strawberry Bench, when I would never be warm again.
Thomas is the managing editor of the Appeal. He can be reached at thoward@newtoncountyappeal.com.
