The Hunting Trip from Hades

The air lately had felt crisp and cool and the primitive pall of hunting fever had overtaken me. I had been spending my waking hours thinking about hunting, and my sleeping hours dreaming about it. I had even gone so far as to purchase some cold weather gear and my hunting license.

I had also gone grouse hunting a couple of times to eastern Washington so I knew where I wanted to go deer hunting this year. The deer were thick in Okanagan county and the prospects never looked better so I made my plans for a third trip there for that once in a lifetime buck.

The time off finally arrived and my wife encouraged me to pack the pickup and take off for three days of hunting. I could hardly wait. My wife had even checked the weather for me and made motel reservations. She said the weather looked cloudy and wet but I had gear for that and knew that it rarely, if ever, snowed over there this time of year, at least in my experience.

So I left late on the first day, headed over the North Cascades Pass and arrived at my motel. My wife had made reservations there for two nights. It did look nasty out and the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that I should only stay for one night because I might get my deer and then I would have to head for home to arrange for a locker. Also, the weather just might possibly change and ruin any chances for me to bag some game. So, I asked the clerk if I could just pay for one night's stay. Of course, she was reluctant to allow that since my wife had made reservations for two nights and I hadn't given them forty eight hours notice. Well, we talked about it and she finally gave in.

I took my bags upstairs to my room, plopped them down on the floor, flipped on the tv, and laid across the bed to look at a book I had purchased about tree identification (another low key hobby of mine). I had taken off my glasses and was thumbing through the book while half listening to the tv when the bad aspects of the trip started in earnest. I rolled over on the bed and heard a crunching sound. I rolled back and found that I had rolled on my glasses. They were broken. The left temple hinge had pulled apart. I panicked. I had to have those glasses to see to drive, let alone see to shoot. I felt my temper rise as I tried to fix the glasses in the dim light. It was already seven o'clock and dark outside. I also needed the glasses in order to see to fix the glasses. It was one heck of a fix to be in. No spare glasses, and a long way from home. I was pretty sure I wouldn't find a place over there to get my glasses fixed so I puzzled over what to do. I finally remembered I had some fishing gear in the truck (in case I stumbled across a stream that looked promising and the deer hunting wasn't going too well) so I went uphill to the truck, dug around for a flashlight and realized I hadn't brought one. I felt through my gear until I found a spool of monofilament, took it back to the room, and spent the next four hours trying to bind the glasses back together. I finally got it about midnight but my spirits were getting gloomier by the hour. I went to bed and had the strangest dream. I dreamed that I had slid off the road up in the North Cascades Pass at a particularly precarious spot. I shook me pretty good and I couldn't get back to sleep so I flipped on the tube and watched tv off and on until daybreak.

I had gone to the store and purchased some fruit and stuff the night before so I had some oranges and snacks for breakfast and headed out to find a glass repair place. I had to drive to the next town and explore until I found one that didn't open until ten o'clock. So I had some time to kill. I stopped at a mini-mart type store for some coffee and a breakfast roll. When I took the stuff to the counter to pay, I offered the clerk my Visa card. She said it was three dollars and some cents and she couldn't take a Visa card for less than five dollars so I asked her to ring five dollars up and give me the change. She said they couldn't give change on debit transactions. It figured. So, I went without coffee or a breakfast roll.

Then I decided my glasses repair job were holding up very well and I would just go hunting and try to forget about all the inconveniences so far. I headed up into the hills where I had previously decided to hunt and it started snowing. Very lightly at first, almost a light rain with a little spitting snow here and there. I figured that might work to my advantage in that it might be snowing harder up higher in the hills and work to drive the deer down to lower elevations. But the longer I hunted that morning, the harder it snowed until I decided I had better bag the hunting and get back over the pass while I still could. It wasn't inconceivable that the DOT might close the pass if enough snow fell. So, I went back to town, checked out of the motel, and the new desk clerk scolded me for not giving forty eight hours notice of not using the second night's reservation. I apologized and left. I worked my way up into the pass and was about a half hour from town when my previous night's mare came true.

I was climbing a long grade in a regular snow storm, and wondering if my all season radials were enough to get me over the pass (I had totally forgotten to bring my snow chains and a shovel) when I was going around a curve in the road, and the pickup's rear end slid around to the left. I counter steered but just as rapidly the rear end whipped around to the right. There was a very deep steep canyon on the left side of the road and a mountain side rising up on the right. I was able to keep the pickup from spinning completely around but the rear end caught the shoulder of the road and the next thing I knew I was headed straight for the ditch. The front end of the pickup slammed into the mountainside, the pickup bounced, and spun, and the rear end hit the mountainside in the same place. I sat there for a minute taking stock. I was uninjured, I had survival gear in the back and lots of food in the front seat. The pickup was still running so I knew there had been no serious damage to the engine and I was grateful for that. I had actually been traveling about twenty five or thirty at the most when I hit the ditch. The snow was falling steadily now and there were just two tracks on the highway. It wasn't long before a vehicle came by. I was standing outside the truck as they passed and stared. In the next four hours I couldn't believe how many people passed me with the same response. No one stopped but an older man and his wife did slow down, she leaned out the window and asked if I was alright. I shouted I was and she asked if I wanted them to call for help. I shouted I did and thanked them. Then I got back in the truck and tried to keep warm and keep from worrying as I watched the snow fall harder and harder. Many more people passed me including a snow plow that veered slightly away from my vehicle but still managed to throw a lot of snow up over my truck. He not only didn't stop, as it turned out, he didn't even call in to the DOT to let them know someone was stranded in the pass.

I got out of the truck again to try to assess the damage to my vehicle and see if I could extricate myself since it was apparent I wasn't going to get any help from anybody else. I saw that my right front tire was blown. I couldn't get to my spare because it was under the pickup and you had to get to it from the back but the backend of my truck was up against the mountainside. Then I noticed around the curve where I sat and about three hundred yards up the highway, three vehicles had stopped in the middle of the road. Not having anything better to do and wondering if they needed help, I walked up there. A woman was kneeling beside her car putting chains on and I asked her if she needed any help with them. She was nice and chatty and said no, she had put her chains on twice that day already. So, I went up to the next car where two men were struggling to put their chains on. I asked them if they needed help and since the driver couldn't speak english, I just went ahead and put the chains on for him. None of the three people asked where I had come from, if I was alright, or if I needed a ride. So, I just went back after they left and resumed sitting in my pickup in my now-snow soaked coveralls. I took to turning on the hazard lights every time I saw a vehicle but no one would stop for a couple of hours. I was beginning to sweat a little with worry and wonder if I was going to have to spend the night or longer trapped when a large heavily loaded suv went past. I flashed my lights at them but they went on. Then, much to my surprise, they returned and stopped. I jumped out and talked with them. They were two older hunters and they offered me a ride into town. Of course, I jumped at the chance. Greatly relieved, I climbed in beside them and found out they were having transmission troubles. But we finally got down off the mountain. As we approached Mazama, a small little road stop off highway twenty, they talked about dropping me off there. I encouraged them to go on into the next town where there was a garage. They finally agreed to. So we all wound up at the Chevron station in Winthrop. The garage owner had two wreckers. I asked his wife who ran the station if he could go get my truck. I got another shock when she said he was awful busy and wouldn't be able to. We talked for awhile and it sounded like she was softening a little. She was surprisingly reluctant to help. It took me awhile to get to talk to him. He was out picking up a vehicle with his wrecker. When he finally did get back, he also didn't want to go up in the pass. I talked and talked with them both, offering to pay whatever they charged. I had no other idea how to get my truck otherwise. Finally late in the afternoon, he agreed if he could bring my truck back to his garage and fix it. So, I grabbed a bowl of soup and off we went.

When we finally got up in the pass to where my truck was and got it pulled out, I found the only damage was to the front bumper and the right front tire. The bumper was no big deal, and the tow truck driver helped me change the tire. Then he left and I drove, VERY SLOWLY, back down the mountain to town.

While we were working on the truck, the WSP stopped by. The trooper never even got out of his car to inquire after my health, he just rolled the passenger window down and scolded the tow truck driver for coming out to get me without being dispatched by the state patrol. Well, it turned out that no one had even contacted the state patrol about my wreck. I shudder to think how long I could have been stranded in that pass before someone might have come along who disregarded the "rules" and offered assistance. I cannot thank those two older gentlemen enough for what they did. I offered to pay them for their service and they refused all offers. They are true AMERICANS in my book. By contrast, I feel nothing but pity for people who are so concerned about themselves that they cannot stop to offer assistance to someone else in need. Even the Washington State Patrol is more concerned with following stupid, arcane, rules than implementing their mission statement which is to protect and serve.

Needless to say, I stopped at another town and bought a set of tire chains, then proceeded south to Wenatchee and then west to leavenworth. It was late that night and raining when I pulled into Leavenworth. I immediately checked the Stevens pass report and my heart sank. They were forecasting snow of all things and a traction advisory was in effect.

Well, I couldn't face the possibility of another snow bound incident like the one I had just been through only worse in the darkness and falling temperatures so I got a motel room for the night in Leavenworth. After a good night's sleep and talking with my wife over the phone, I was ready to tackle Stevens Pass the next morning. Thankfully, the snow had melted and the roadway was just bare and wet. So, I made it all the way home in a damaged truck after a long drive.

Of all the most frustrating moments I experienced in that miserable forty eight hours, one of the worst was all the deer I saw in the back of pickups. I just knew that I stood a good chance of bagging a buck. I was so prepared for the hunt with all the right gear. I had thought of everything . . . except bad weather, accidents, and spare glasses.

If I was to offer anyone going on a trip advice, it would be this. Stop, think, prepare for any and every contingency. Don't rely on anyone coming to your aid. Chances of that happening are remote at best. Your survival is up to you.