Walking In God's Garden

I took off Monday afternoon and went archery elk hunting even though the temperature hovered near ninety degrees. I left Ardella in camp with the Jolene and the granddaughters and off course, Sadie. I left in a hurry and forgot to take any water, binoculars, and my elk decoy, Henrietta. My path resembled the kids in the Family Circus cartoon when they are supposed to go to the neighbor’s house and instead cover two blocks and climb trees and fences to get there. I proceeded up an old road through Vance’s property and discovered the fresh scat of a black bear but my mind was focused on finding elk. I walked the old road out along the top end off a clear cut made several years ago but could not find any elk tracks so I headed farther out along another road that dissects a more recent clear cut still not finding any elk tracks. An old grown in road cut down toward a creek bottom where I had set up camouflage cloth for a ground blind at an old elk wallow; so I turned down it knowing it would be cooler in the dark timber. To my surprise I found the blind fabric strewn across the ground and ripped into two pieces. At first I thought a moose had got tangled up in it but closer inspection revealed a black bear had found it. The bear also dug out some insects at the base of a tree where the fabric was hanging. I hung up the big part and checked the wallow but there have not been any elk use it yet so I proceeded back to the road in the clear cut and soon found some recent elk tracks. I followed the road around the hill where it ended but could not find any more tracks so I headed up a trail that parallels a small creek. I have never been in the creek bottom that tumbles its way through big dark timber and decided to explore this cool area the God had created. I descended into the cool timber where the temperature dropped about twenty degrees. The forest floor was a mat of pine needles and the gurgle of the creek very pleasant. A few ferns grew near the waters edge but other than that it was like walking through a cathedral of old trees I found numerous deer trails and spotted some old four by six beams stretched across some old logs. They were the remains of an old log flume that over sixty years ago carried logs out of the mountains to the valley below where they were loaded on train cars and taken to the Humbird mill in Sandpoint.

I was trying to envision the kind of life these rugged men had living in the woods most of the year when I saw a bone of a deer leg. I looked up and spotted the jaw bone several feet away and picked it up to age the deer by the wear on the teeth and decided that this deer was probably four years old. As I cast a glance to my left, some white antlers caught my eye. There was the skull and antlers of a nice five by five white tail buck. I determined it had been here nearly two years and realized I may have seen this year the year before he died as a nice four by four buck. He was with a huge five point buck and though I could have easily taken him, I choose to wait out the big guy who seemed to have a sense that something wasn’t right and melted back into the brush. A year later I took the big buck but never saw this buck again.

I climbed my way out of the creek bottom and took up a position by an old log pile for the rest of the evening and watched the sun slowly disappear over the Selkirk Mountains. As I walked back to camp in the dark and to lazy to dig out a head lamp I talked out loud to God, thanking Him for the adventure of the afternoon. We all need to get out in God’s outdoors and wander around and thank Him for his wonderful creation.