Naches Elk 2, Me Zero

[sixty4nhalf]

Well this was my second trip out to little Naches, for General Spike Elk hunt.

Friday the 28th started of GREAT, left work about 8am. Got home and finished loading the truck, topping off with fuel, propane, quick stop at Wal-mart to get the rest of the food for my 9 days in the woods(planning for the worst) hooking up the camp trailer, and out on the road, finally at 1. Had to run down to Cabela's for 1 item, should be in and out in 10-15 mins MAX!  Speed limit through Tacoma was a blazing 10MPH. Once at Cabela's I got my 1 item that I was wanting, remembered 1 item that I was needing and then to the register, that whole ordeal took me 1 hour, thank's to a cash register that didn't want to cooperate, I was back on the road back in more traffic @ 20MPH this time...... what seamed like forever because it was, I was finally heading up FSR19 to 1902, which is were I wanted to be 5 hours earlier.  I set up the trailer, fired up the generator, turned on the heat and NOTHING, no heat at all, checked the fuses all were good. Oh well I'll figure it out in the AM.

Day 1: No heat still, got the coffee pot going time to warm up a bit, got dressed and I was out the door and in the woods. Shots were ringing all around me.
Day 2: Still no heat same as day 1 except that night (Sun) generator decided to stop working. Got a glimps of a sheeps rear quarter trotting along.
Day 3: Still no heat, No coffee, no power. Ended up driving to 2 stores near by and resorted in some Instant Coffee at $5.47 for a miniature serving.
Day 4 : Still no heat or power, but I have Coffee(ish). by this time the temps are dropping....
Day 5: didn't want to get up cause it was so cold, a brisk 29 in the camper.... water pipes frozen, so there goes the coffee, ah wait I have ice, and ice is made from water, so I boiled down a bag of ice into water to make some coffee. Finally headed out, ran across a cow and 2 calves.
Day 6: Woke up to about 2 inches of fresh powder, got some more ice to boil into coffee, on my way out camps were getting packed all over the place. Came back around lunch time and the roads were icy. Figured it was time to head out myself, enough was enough.
So the spikes have won another round this year......

[robodad]

Good Grief !!

[sixty4nhalf]

But all and all I had a great time, just a bit more miserable than desired, wish my hunting buddy could have taken off some time to go with, it wouldn't have been so bad. Plus if I knew that the weather would hold out or I knew that I would be able to pull out the camp trailer and not have any issues going back over the passes, I would have stayed a bit longer, the weather was the key factor, those FSR were getting really slick.

[Glockster]

Man, been there done that!  I gets really lonely and cold and by day 4 you start asking yourself 'why do i do this to myself?'  LOL 

One time I had a cow tag for the Nile.  Doesn't open for permit cows until Wed.  So I enjoy a nice opening weekend in  the Bethel unit with my buddies; cloud nine KNOWING i'll get my cow in a few days.  Well, buddies leave Sunday aftnoon, it snows, then gets reaaaaallllly cold.  I'm sleeping in the back of my truck every night. Nothing but Mexican, cowboy music or religeous freaks to listen to on the radio.  I've gone through my cd case twice by then .  By day 5 ; no cow, temp is down to single didgits at night, all my beer freezes and explodes, my water is almost all frozen, and the last night, my propane stove decides to detonate.  Good times. 

[Fl0und3rz]

Pulled into camp in the 352 GMU last Friday night, and within 2 minutes of parking, I heard a loud bang that sounded like a gunshot.  I found my truck slumped at left front. Upon inspection the next morning, I find my left front torsion bar snapped. 

That will ruin a hunt pretty quickly.  Later that week I hear that road hunters shot a spike from a vehicle (heard it 3rd hand) just about 300 yards from our camp.

[Encore 280]

64.5
If your buddy woulda came along then ya coulda shared the sleeping bag and cuddled up to stay warm!!! At least ya had some luck anyway. Too bad it wasn't good. Hopefully it's better next time.

[sixty4nhalf]

Man, been there done that!  I gets really lonely and cold and by day 4 you start asking yourself 'why do i do this to myself?'  LOL 

temp is down to single didgits at night, all my beer freezes and explodes, my water is almost all frozen, and the last night, my propane stove decides to detonate.  Good times.

Oh Hell no beer.... I think that was my only saving grace from going postal.... and yes I was saying that, 10 times a day I would say that I was done and heading home, but then after thawing in the afternoon sun I felt revived (until that darn sun set again).  I did have to plug in the camp trailer in every night and run my rig to keep my batteries semi-charged, and with Diesel running at $4.59/gal that was an expensive charging system. But hey it was all good.

[sixty4nhalf]

Just figured out what happened to the Generator....... Just in case yours dies like mine did, try this. Most Generators these days have a low oil cut off switch.  I unscrewed the 1/4-20 nut removed the wire, Started right up and stayed running........ Wish I would have tried this while I was in the woods!  Damn the simple things