Where They Are

[I just found this in my “Drafts” folder. It’s from two years ago when we were still looking for a place back in chukar country to move to. I thought I’d posted it but for some reason didn’t, probably related to a family emergency that, along with the person it centered on, passed about a year ago.]

We drove nearly a quarter of a million miles looking for birds this season. I don’t have the exact figure. We hiked 51.4, which was at least twice what we did the previous season (I didn’t even bother keeping records), but more than 160 fewer miles than our last big season (2020-21). Those are all the numbers I feel like sharing now. Maybe next year I’ll geek out a bit more on that score.

At the beginning of one of those long, multi-state drives, in December I think, we left our house at the ultimate northwest point of the contiguous United States and drove nearly 30 miles going 25 mph along the undulant serpentine highway fronting the Strait of Juan de Fuca (also known as the Salish Sea) before realizing that I had forgotten my boots. So we went back and got them. The fog had burned off on the redux. “Worth waiting for, huh?” it seemed to say.

For years I’d wanted to hunt chukar in Nevada. And never had. So this year, we went down there, armed with some beta from a cyber-friend we ended up meeting for dinner in Winnemucca. We’d reserved a room, on his advice, at Scott’s Shady Court, and when we crossed its threshold we time-traveled back about a half-century. Our suite was big and roomy, and cheap, and the dogs loved it, but there weren’t any grounded outlets so I couldn’t charge all our shit. Anachronism much? Anyway, before dinner at the fabulous (for real) Martin Hotel, we headed to Wally World to buy licenses to add to our Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Wyoming bird licenses this season. It was a typical Wal-Mart experience: walk around ’til you find someone who looks like they work there, ask for help, and have them ignore you but walk away and use their radio to ask someone to come to the _____ department and help a customer. The five minutes that elapsed before an associate arrived were spent by me thinking I should have just tried to get my license online. The young man entered the space behind the counter near all the guns and ammo (they lock that up now, too), and began logging into the computer. There was another guy with him, also with an associate’s blue vest and nametag with the smiley face on it. Together they appeared to will the keypuncher’s access to the system. Several minutes and dozens of keystrokes later, the keypuncher looked up for a brief moment, not at me but in my direction, and announced that he couldn’t remember his login information. I looked at him and asked if he could call a manager. “I am the manager,” he replied. The ensuing conversation made it clear that I would not be able to purchase a license at Wal-Mart that evening, but that I could come back at 8 a.m. the following morning when another manager who could probably remember his or her login would have taken over. On the way out I made a brief stop at the customer service desk for a second opinion, which verified the first one.

At the Martin Hotel, sitting with strangers at the long family style dinner table, before our friend got there, while pretending to peruse the menu, we eavesdropped on our table-mates’ conversation about lining up immigrants, shooting them, and letting them fall into a mass grave. “Where would be a good spot for that?” one of the others asked earnestly. Then our friend arrived, and on hearing the account of the Wal-Mart license experience, was initially aghast but then said that unless we had a physical copy of a certificate showing we’d passed a hunter safety course we would not be able to buy a license in Nevada. It was my turn to be aghast, which I was; none of the other five states had such a requirement for people of our advanced age and inestimable experience. Chock this one up to an overabundance of faith and not doing adequate research: the next morning we drove north out of Nevada, our Silver State Chukar Virginity intact. As we crossed from Nevada into Oregon, Leslie said, “We should call it ‘No-vada.'” [NOTE: We’ve since figured out what we need to do on the license front, but have yet to make it there. Soon, I hope.]

Like Moses, we wandered a lot in the desert looking both for birds and a new place to live. Wyoming was different for us, and revelatory in several ways. The red landscape around the Wind River range struck us positively, but the prickly-pear cactus stuck our dogs’ feet negatively. Still, after a wonderful morning in and around Lander, we did laundry in Pinedale and talked with an octogenarian man who’d raised ten kids in a log cabin nearby with no running water or electricity; each of his kids had long since graduated from a prestigious university and gone on to do big things. We camped at Ten Sleep Brewing Company, initially setting up in the wrong campground, to be kicked out by a rancher who owned what was the glitzy but empty level concrete pad expensive campground right next to the brewery campground but with no distinguishing signage. We found our sloped grassy/muddy tiny spot not long thereafter, which was okay. Better than okay was being awakened the next morning by chukar calling from a rocky outcropping above the brewery. The dogs were lit running through the network of red arroyos and over terrain that must have registered a lunar difference if they’d even paused for a second to contemplate. I’ve never hiked in anything more beautiful, but no birds were found by us despite a couple hard points by Bloom. On our way out of there, we (I) of course got lost, which I truly enjoy but Leslie does not. An unexpected joy, for us both, was that, while we sat pulled off to the side of the road, a FedEx truck passed us, braked, reversed, and the driver asked us if he could help direct us somewhere. His friendliness and easy-to-follow directions gave me a warmth for humanity. About thirty minutes later, we came to an intersection on the still-gravel road that we wanted to analyze, and — you guessed it — the same driver came past us, stopped, reversed, this time getting out of his truck and walking back to us in case, I don’t know, we might have something as novel as a map to look at (nope; just the “smart” phones). Anyway, he suggested the best route to Cody, and we were on our way, but not before my typical question to strangers in chukar country: “Do you by chance hunt chukar?” He said no, he didn’t have time, which I thought was a good answer, whether or not it was true.

As it’s no doubt obvious by now, we’re both beerhounds, and the more cynical out there might view our house-seeking/chukar-hunting itinerary as a thinly-veiled excuse to visit brewpubs throughout the intermountain west and Pacific Northwest. Joints including but not limited to ones in Prineville (OR), The Dalles (OR), Walla Walla (WA), Lewiston (ID), Clarkston (WA), Ontario (OR), Mitchell (OR), Ten Sleep (WY), Sheridan (MT), Lewistown (MT), Ennis (MT), Victor (ID), Spokane (WA), Baker City (OR), Enterprise (OR), John Day (OR), Salmon (ID), Driggs (ID), Olympia (WA), and Troutdale (OR) sold us IPAs. And, in the ill-fated Winnemucca leg, we were gifted with some fine brews by Alectoris Aleworks! With Hells Canyon Beer about to embark on its third iteration, we realize we actually might be a Beer Club with a Chukar Problem.