Each year, many hunters have a NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE. It comes in the form of the after-dark, stayed-in-the-woods-too-long, hiked-way-too-far-into-the-forest-like-my-wife-told-me-not-to-do jaunt back to the truck on a mountain trail, an old mining road, bushwhacking through a north-facing slope of spruce trees void of all light, or through an open meadow with shadows dancing menacingly around you as each blade of Timothy grass sways in the night breeze.
It’s scary out there. In the dark. Alone. Out of water and beef jerky (you forgot that in the truck). Every twig that pops off to your left is Bigfoot, Jason, or a mountain lion stalking you. You regret seeing the movie Deliverance (I’ve never seen it). Is that a banjo playing up the canyon to your right? The bear you see moving in front of you turns out to be a shadow of a squirrel perched perfectly on a spruce limb between you and the moon. In the daytime the pine cone that falls from an evergreen is only an annoyance that breaks the silence of your quiet stalk. At night, that pine cone is Chupacabra.
Out of the blue, your prayer life is alive like never before. Your pastor would be proud (if he remembers you; you stopped attending after that “hunting on Sundays” sermon).
I, too, am one of the NDE Survivors.
Regardless of our situation, the Near Death Experience is the same. It is sudden. It is expected, but always catches us off guard. No matter how we prepare our minds for it we never see it coming. But there it is, every time. While it, in itself, is harmless its effects are not. It is devastating. It shakes us to our core.
What is it?
The “It” I refer to is the immediately ear-splitting flapping of the grouse’s wings as this stupid forest chicken takes flight in our faces just before we step on it. The sound is like thunder rippling through the still, dark forest night. We empty every round into the ground ahead of us, we vacate our bowels (just a little), and we grab our souls by the ankles and pull them back into our bodies as we try and escape to heaven.
This is our Near Death Experience every.single.year.
But, read on. There is another you may recognize…
This NDE is disguised as a friend. On the surface he looks rational, seems friendly, has your best interests in mind. At his best he is the Captain of a Star Trek starship caring for the welfare of his crew, he is the father who tenderly braids his daughter’s hair, he is the buddy you laugh with over a succulent weekend barbecue as you remember your hunting and fishing exploits.
At his worst, he is MANIAC MOUNTAIN MAN.
He is the hunting buddy who believes “you gotta go high to find the elk” (Elk are originally plains animals which frolicked with the bison and pronghorns). He’s never surprised when summiting the peak and not seeing elk:
“The other hunters must have already driven them off the backside…” (there are no there hunters up here) “…we can probably cut them off on that peak over there if we hurry” (pointing to a peak in the distance I cannot see with the naked eye as he stares into his binoculars).
He wakes before dawn–long before dawn and wants to enlist you in frivolous activities like cooking breakfast–after you build the fire. I’m fine with a Slim Jim as long as it’s the sun that wakes me up.
“Get up! It’s already 2 A.M. We gotta be on the peak at sunrise. That’s when they’re moving!”
In his mind, he is in a Marlboro Man commercial when he hunts.
He is Super Hunter; he wears a camo cape under his camo.
He’s the Lone Ranger.
He is the ultimate woodsman. His Den Mother, “Pat,” told him that in Cub Scouts.
And, he has the badges to prove it.
I have this friend–Maniac Mountain Man.
Tamer of the Wilderness. Conqueror of the Peaks. He was a Cub Scout. In fact, an Eagle Scout. I don’t know what that means other than to imagine his rank in the scouts is brigadier general (and, I suppose he teaches younger scouts how to tie six-thousand different kinds of knots during their Jamborees). He runs marathons. He hikes for the sheer joy of it. He’d have done his own hernia surgery if his doctor would have cooperated and told him how. He was awarded “Ironman” on our football team in high school.
Not me. My coach showed his fondness for my contributions by breaking his clipboard across my helmet every other practice.
I was a running back. I can still hear coach reminding me of this fact during our mile warm up around the track, “COWAN!!!! YOUR A FLIPPIN’ RUNNING BACK!!! WHY ARE YOU BACK THERE RUNNING WITH THE LINEMEN???!!!
Gasping for life-giving oxygen I’d assure him I knew this, “Coach…gag…cough…I’m just trying…to (God help me)…encourage them!” as Richard continued dragging me down the track to acknowledge my encouragement and ensure I hit my 13-minute mile pace. At least the linemen saw my worth.
But, back to my friend the Maniac Mountain Man.
I looked forward to the hunting season. I was mentally prepared for the forest chicken NDE that would invariably happen. What I wasn’t prepared for was the Maniac Mountain Man. As we planned our trip he suggested a spot not too far from the tip of the 12,000 foot peak where the elk are. “You gotta go high to find the elk.”
I gently suggested another spot. “I’ve already scoped out some elk there. It’s only about a 1/4 mile from the road. Easy access, great hunt, easy pack out.”
He looked at me like I had never hunted before. “There’s no elk in there. It’s too low. You gotta go high to find the elk.”
Fine. Let’s try Maniac Mountain Man’s spot first. Humor him. I’m only out there for the camaraderie and outdoors experience anyway.
We set up our tent over an overcast sky, black clouds ominously looming overhead, grabbed our bows and set out in the “lower areas” (Around 10,500 feet). “Not that there’s any elk down here, but we may as well hunt till dark,” says the MMM. We hunted far into the dense, overgrown spruce forest. It began to rain. MMM wasn’t phased. “Nice little sprinkle we’re having,” as the downpour turned into cold sleet coming in sideways at a thousand miles an hour scraping the five o’clock shadow off my face with it’s sheer force.
I suggested we turn around. The MMM informed me that was just the hypothermia talking; no real hunter would miss this opportunity. “They won’t even hear us coming!” he shouted as he marched on peeling off his clothing because he was getting hot.
As predicted by the one sane person on this hunt, there were no elk. We returned to camp. MMM snuggled into his side of the tent he’d set up while I had unpacked the truck. I tugged and pulled at my drenched clothing hoping I’d soon stop shivering and slid into my sleeping bag. With my clothing off, I could see my skin shriveled up as if I’d already been pickled. Immediately, the bag sunk and water penetrated the down feathers. MMM had set our tent up over a sink hole a foot deep–except for his side.
His side.
His side was on the high side of the sink hole. He was already snoring.
I was instantaneously surrounded by enough water to be classified as a small sea. Thrashing and gasping for air, my friend, the MMM slept on. A brook trout jumped over my face. In one final effort I grabbed hold of the side of his dry, warm sleeping bag and hauled myself out of the icy abyss. I startled him. He woke. “Is it morning? Let’s go!”
“NO! IT’S NOT M… M… M… M… MMORNING!” I shiver-yelled. “IT’S TIME TO GET OUT OF THIS PLACE AND FIND SOMEWHERE WARM. I’M DYING. NO, REALLY I’M DYING!”
He was annoyed. Why wake him because I couldn’t sleep. He reluctantly agreed that we needed to find a place to warm up as icicles began forming on my wet body. I dragged my soaking wet, water-logged 6000 lb. sleeping bag to the truck and threw it in the back. “C’MON! WE CAN GET THE TENT LATER!,” I seethed through the ice particles hanging in the night air.
As I huddled around the one small vent coming out of the dashboard in front of me we drove down a road only the bravest of men had gone before. Men in search of fortune. Narrow, cliff on one side, 90 degree uphill slope on the other. MMM let me know the warmth of the heater was making him sleepy. I was sorry for him.
We found a forest service cabin. Door open. Wood on the porch. I rushed in and crammed wood into the stove. MMM surveyed the scene. There were bunk beds. He looked them over and claimed the bottom, “Heat rises, you better sleep on top.”
I looked at the top bunk. Hole in the ceiling above the bed. Pack rat droppings all over the plywood mattress. Before I could protest I heard snoring. MMM was in dreamland.
I am deathly afraid of rats. During the time of this particular hunting trip I lived in a guest house on a ranch in southern Colorado while attending college. One semester of rats in the ceiling at night. Scratching the walls behind my headboard as I tried to sleep. And, running across my body at night as they got under the sheets. I caught 60 rats the first night I got traps. I wanted no part of the top bunk and now had my misgivings about this cabin. Did I want to freeze to death or be gnawed to death by ravenous mountain pack rats?
I chose the quick death of being eaten alive over the slowness of freezing to death.
I hung my sleeping bag in front of the wood stove and crawled up on the plywood bunk. The fire was crackling now and I’d soon be warm enough. I lay on my back and stared into the dark hole above my face. I could imagine rats falling out of there by the thousands as they began their nightly hunt for sustenance. They were in there. Plotting. Like a wicked coven of vampire bats waiting for me to fall asleep so they could to eat my face off. An owl hooted outside. A mountain lion screamed in the distance.
Unbelievably, my fear gave in to exhaustion and I slowly drifted in and out of consciousness. Just as I stopped the shivering, the thick sheet of ice melting from my body, and beautiful sleep was about to set in I had a Near Death Experience.
“THERE’S A RAT! THERE’S A RAT!! THERE’S A RAT!!!”
MMM was sitting straight up in his bunk pointing at the floor in front of the stove. His eyes were filled with terror. His voice shrill and terrified. Chills went up my spine. I grabbed my soul by the ankles and held on to it for dear life. My heart jumped out of my chest with every beat.
As soon as he’d screamed it, he lay straight back down and snored. He was only dreaming.
Paralyzed, I sat hunkered in the corner of the cabin for the next two hours staring at the shadows dancing around on the floor in front of wood stove. Each one looked like a rat coming for me.
I watched from my corner as MMM kicked the plywood on the top bunk. “Time to get up! It’s 2 AM. We gotta get to the peak. We gotta go high to get to the elk today. Hurry!”