She’d never do this herself, so I’m doing it. Part of the “culture” of this blog’s title is off-the-hill stuff. Leslie, retired from a long career in healthcare, spends most of her non outdoor time in her studio making jewelry and scented soy candles. She sells her jewelry on her Etsy site “Taisie Design,” but the candles (as well as some of her jewelry pieces) are only available in a few local stores (Kaye York’s gallery in Cambridge, The House That Art Built in Ontario, Oregon, and Barn Owl Books in McCall).
I admit I’m biased, but I’m a big fan of her precious metal clay jewelry, even though I don’t wear any of it. Each piece is a one-off, handmade piece of art relating to the outdoors and the landscape we spend our best time in, including Hells Canyon. She’s a perfectionist, and won’t list anything on her site if she wouldn’t buy it herself, so many pieces never make it.
Leslie is more inspired in life by her time chukar hunting than I am. I just write about it occasionally. She makes art that brings the sensuality of the terrain, the intensity of the bond with precious dogs, and the profoundly rare simplicity of losing oneself in an experience all together in wee dear things that capture a little of all of that in ways that obviously resonate with others. It’s a culture thing.
Yesterday, Thanksgiving, we hunted a beloved area that got burned in a big fire that started on Labor Day. We weren’t sure what to expect, but have been anxious to see it up close for a while now. From the road, you can only see so much.
Inside it, the devastation was both unsurprising and heartbreaking. Along the creek, you could see temperature changes in the fire’s path, and the flames’ duration from spot to spot. I found myself weeping at times, and terrified when imagining what it might have been like to be there as the inferno navigated its way up the canyon. I felt grateful that the birds and mammals who called that place home are stronger and swifter and smarter than we are. I’m assuming they moved and hope they’ve found suitable habitation.
One of the reasons we chose this place was that I hadn’t bagged a grouse this year. Up high, fir stands in tight draws usually housed good numbers of dusky grouse, the biggest bird we hunt (although next year I intend to hunt sage grouse for the first time). Within five minutes I killed probably the only pair of ruffed grouse left down there. Gorgeous creatures, but the remorse I used to struggle with blind-sided me while looking at their feathers and blood dripping from their beaks before putting them in my bird bag. Clearly, and gratefully, only a temporary resolution.
No sign of chukar in the usual places on the way up. At the top, in the forest, the fire had been greedy thinning the undergrowth, and the large population of dusky grouse had obviously flown the coop. We angled up higher to more open areas whose robust blankets of bunchgrasses were toast, singed into a blackened crewcut. These rolling slopes covered in bunches of grass had made oases for chukar, provided protection from raptors, and now were desolate, bereft of blades.
At closer look, though, a happy sight: almost undetectable sprouts of green emerging from the scorched tufts. I wished I was a botanist so I could predict how long it would take these beautiful plants to reach maturity again and stand firm against the noxious invasion of medusahead, spotted knapweed, rush skeletonweed, and star thistle (among others) that seriously threaten this unique but delicate habitat. I’m eager for spring so I can see how these grasses have fared. I love them. I named one of my favorite beers after them (Bunchgrass Rye IPA).
On one knob that pre-fire was dense with sagebrush, large charred polka-dots showed only the charcoal base of these important and gorgeous plants. Another happy sight, though: in several of them, healthy deposits of chukar poo. Chukar have been there, but we didn’t see any and Peat didn’t find any on our 6-mile (and his 20-mile) hike.
The terrain lured us farther and higher than we’d intended, and on a snowy north-facing slope we found fresh dusky grouse tracks. Seconds later, Peat pointed into a stand of conifers. Two of the pterodactylic galliformes launched simultaneously. Leslie and I each shot at the only one without trees in its way, and we each killed it with shotgun shells I’d loaded containing some of Angus’s ashes. He loved grouse hunting.
On the way down, it was fascinating to see springs in places whose pre-fire plantlife concealed. There was much more water on this terrain, coming out of it, than I ever dreamed in the decade I’ve hunted there. It shouldn’t be surprising: this high desert landscape is stingy with water, so pockets of large plants on the otherwise arid land should signify a spring. Plant-bare, though, you can see it now. But the lack of cover at these springs meant we wouldn’t see any birds that used to chillax there.
Bagging three birds on this hike, despite the remorse, helped make it feel successful. I suppose I should assign more success to the fact that some of the vegetation is rebounding already. But the completely toasted creek bottom dampens the hope for recovery, there at least, because — unlike Hart Crane’s river — the fire did not quickly flee that particular watery spot. Fire and water, hope and sadness. Life.
An early ruffed grouse giftPick up your &%$@!# shells!Bunchgrass comebackPhoenixOther resurrectionsSigns of life and deathFirst dusky of the year (actually, only 1/2: Leslie & I both killed it)Big birds with excellent, appreciated proteinAngus’s legacy
“Do you guys have gas?” Bob asked. I could hear the woman on the other end laughing.
“Of course we do, we’re a gas station,” she answered. “We’re only open from 8am-5pm.”
“Just checking, we’d hate to drive all that way and find out you didn’t,” he added.
The undulating terrain, headwinds, and just plain bad miscalculations on our part made for terrible gas mileage in our truck camper. We were relieved to reach the gas station by phone because for starters we actually had phone service, and we wouldn’t have to turn around and go back to a gas station we’d stupidly driven past 60 long gravel and washboard miles earlier.
We pulled up to the gas station about 30 miles from where we made the phone call and they were open, just like the woman promised. The pump was one of those old style ones that didn’t take debit cards. A young-looking guy who was loading empty cardboard boxes into the back of his pickup next to the gas station yelled to us, “Round it off to the nearest dollar and go inside to pay!” I couldn’t understand what he said so I asked him to repeat himself. He yelled back “Go inside and pay!”
While the gas was filling, Bob walked over to talk to the guy. I heard Bob ask him, “Do you know if there are any chukar around here?”
“Oh yeah!” he said. “Drive out of town [he pointed in the direction], take the third left, drive down the dirt road for about an hour, and when you get to the cattle guard go right and drive over the pass to the other side. It’s all BLM land and there’s a lot of chukar out there. Most people that come here to hunt go over there but there’s no birds over there,” pointing in the opposite direction. “I’d be surprised if you don’t see chukar running all over the road just driving in.”
We finished refueling and I went in to pay and bought a couple of milkshakes, too. It was an unusually warm November day and for some reason they just sounded good. We sat outside on a couple of chairs eating them and discussed the pros and cons of changing our original plans of heading up into the Steens Mountains that afternoon for sightseeing, or taking the advice of a stranger and driving into the unknown for miles just to look for chukar. Why was this guy so forthcoming, and if he was also a bird hunter why would he give away a spot? Was he just toying with us and sending us to no man’s land?
Feeling fat and disgusted with myself after eating a gigantic strawberry milkshake for lunch and mostly because poor Peat hadn’t had any exercise for two days, I made the decision that it was worth a try for us to go look for those chukar. If the guy was right, how could we pass up this opportunity? We hopped back into the pickup and headed down the road following his directions from memory after leaving the pavement. After about an hour of driving on dusty, dry-as-a-bone and rough roads we didn’t see any cattle guards, a mountain pass, or chukar on the road as we were promised. Bob and I agreed it looked like a place that might have chukar so we pulled over and stopped. After getting out the of truck and walking to the back, we found the back door of the camper wide open; it probably had been that way for miles. Thick layers of dust and dirt covered everything inside. Since this was my birthday trip, Bob said he’d stay and clean everything in the back of the camper while I went hunting with Peat. I quickly got dressed and headed out as he wished me luck.
The terrain in this part the Oregon High Desert was gentle and rolling and flat in some parts, a much different experience and nice break from the steep places we normally hunt. Within minutes Peat went crazy. His little tail fluttered like a hummingbird and he gets this look in his eyes of being half possessed. There was so much bird scent on the ground that he was bouncing back and forth like a steel ball in a pinball machine and spinning circles like a whirling dervish. He then made a beeline up a small rise and went on point. When I got closer to him, I stopped and got into position to fire. I took a couple steps forward and a huge bird busted from the sage about 10 yards away. I held my fire, realizing it was a sage grouse and watched it launch itself away from earth. Then another one busted, followed by another, another, and another. There were probably at least 15 of them. The scent Peat was tracking were those grouse, a totally new scent for him. He’s never smelled sage grouse before or even seen one for that matter, but they must smell like other types of grouse. Funny how the guy didn’t mention that we might find sage grouse out there too. Maybe we weren’t in the right place but it just goes to show you that you need to be prepared for the unexpected and know what you might see so you don’t accidentally shoot a bird you’re not supposed to.
Peat and I continued to hunt, weaving our way through the sage, and we did find a desperate muddy trickle of a spring and a covey of chukar nearby but the birds heard us coming and ran uphill and busted wild before I could get a decent shot.
Watching a couple of sage grouse fly away.
I couldn’t wait to get back to the camper and tell Bob about my experience of seeing the grouse and finding chukar too. As I was hiking down, Bob was heading up the mountain to join me. I lengthened my hunt to go with him and Peat for a couple more hours, and then watched Bob wander off in another direction following the dog as the sun fell behind the ridge.
We hunted a couple days out there in the High Desert absorbing the warm afternoon sun, watching the evening sunsets over the mountain like a lantern being shut off each night and the brilliant stars in a place with no light pollution which seems is increasingly harder to find.
Winter was coming the next day so we left just before the first snow in this place that will be shut off from the rest of the world until at least next June when the snow’s gone and the roads dry out.
On this day of Thanksgiving, I thank the stranger who led us to this numinous quiet place where we didn’t get lost and nothing bad happened, this wild place of chukar, sage grouse, herds of pronghorn, songbirds, jack rabbits, and hundreds of miles of public land, but mostly because of the deepening calm brought by a landscape millions of years old.
I’ve hunted chukar for two decades now, and once in a while I’ll have a hunt that causes some kind of fundamental reevaluation of my identity. I earned an Ivy League Ph.D., and even I’m proud of that and view it as an accomplishment. At times, I’ve even thought it meant I was at least a little smart. As I struggle to hold onto some sense of myself as a responsible adult involved in a complex of relationships with obligations to and grace from a variety of creatures past, present, and future, what I’ve accomplished seems to matter more to me, and I’m suspicious of that mattering yet take some comfort in it all the same.
There are occurrences, though, that can jettison the whole bit. Usually, it’s kind of a delayed response. “What did I just do?” “I can’t believe I did that,” and it’s not the I’m-so-awesome-because-I-did-that. Instead, it’s the why-the-hell-did-I-do-that?
Yesterday was that kind of hunt. From the boat, based on my extensive knowledge (I’m being sarcastic) of all things chukar, the plan looked promising. Rocks? Check. Water? Check. Cover? Check. Green-up? Check. Tight draws? Check. And, almost as an afterthought: Steep slopes? Check-mate.
So, we tied off the boat and got our gear and dog ready and headed up the hill. We didn’t hear any chukar calling, but that didn’t mean anything. Peat wasn’t birdy and that didn’t evaporate hope. The paucity of partridge poop — ancient or contemporary — didn’t sway us from our quest. Hope is the thing with feathers, so up we continued.
I must have thought it twenty times before I said it to Leslie: “I’m sure Peat’ll point any time.” He didn’t. And so more up.
Just before the summit, which we never intended to reach because we’re so damned smart about this game that we just knew there’d be a bird bonanza at the most halfway up the wall, Peat did point. The birds held in the bowl’s bunchgrass, and Peat was a statue. It was gorgeous to behold. Leslie and I edged closer. The small covey of chukar exploded from where we thought they were, and flew the direction we believed they would. It was perfect. We both whiffed.
A few minutes later, at the summit, .9 miles and 1750′ above the boat, we marveled at the view: snowclad mountains in every direction, another big valley with a little town down in it, a bucolic foreground of gently rolling golden native grasses punctuated by swales. This late fall light is unbeatable. There’s a certain ecstasy paid for mounting a ridge like this. Maybe it’s really what motivates the attempt, but we tell ourselves we’re chukar hunting and hunting chukar.
On top, which is more Hungarian partridge than chukar turf, I managed two birds on lovely work from Peat. I would never disparage a Hun (except maybe Attila), but we’re seeking chukar. So back we went to the ridge and the rocks.
Within minutes, Peat points again, just at the crest of the ridge, looking toward the water. He’s much more cautious than Angus was, so I expected the birds to be a fair bit below him. Leslie and I dropped down the screed slope at least 100 or 150 feet before the chukar busted at least 30 yards below us. Tough to make those shots. We didn’t.
But we followed them: they flew north, and we relocated them, a bit lower than they’d been originally. It was deja vu all over again. Another follow and relocate (Peat is an incredible relocation specialist), and this time Leslie killed one. My missing streak was still alive! At this point, we’d reached the end of the drainage, so the birds scattered more high and low and far and wide.
This was the point I began to realize how gullible I was. They’d suckered me into losing half of my elevation. It does not feel good to realize you’ve been toyed with. It feels even worse to remember that this is not the first, or even the 20th, time they’ve done this to you. Being gullible means you take things you shouldn’t at face value. Check-mate.
I know they’re just chukar and have a brain the size of a dehydrated pea. But on their turf, without a new-fangled new brain to get in the way, their intelligence far surpasses mine. I could hear them calling close and far. Some of their muezzin seemed settled on the rocks just above me. I looked at my altimeter and it showed 1989′ of climbing so far. 2,000′ is a really hard day for me, and I felt toasted. But they lured me up. Plus, Peat was climbing into a creep following the ascending partridges; I knew a point was imminent. One must always honor the point.
I stood at the bottom of a tall rock pile. It was climbable, barely. It sounded like the birds were perched right above me. So I climbed, imagining I was a much older Alex Honnold with a shotgun strung to his shoulder. At one point I even did the karate-kick move they talk about in Free Solo. I nearly peed myself with delight. But when I’d scaled the “peak” it was just more rocks. And the birds seemed to have moved higher to an equidistant spot from me. So I pursued. Up another terrace. No birds, yet the calling continued all around me.
And then it hit me: they’re just f-ing with me. They got me to drop down all that way, and then they got me to climb back up another 800 feet after I was fried. Then I saw Peat point at the base of a rock wall near the very top of the ridge. The birds had no more vertical opportunity, so — as I figured they would — they flew horizontally to the other side of the draw. I could see them hopping around, smirking. I swear one even pulled out a Camel Light and lit up. They were about 100 yards straight above me as I watched them — one by one for at least 5 minutes — march triumphantly up the chute to the summit and out of sight.
This is the dumb way to hunt chukar. I highly recommend it, especially if you feel you could benefit from a total identity makeover.
Our route, which consists of two counterclockwise circles. The second, smaller circle is solid evidence of my stupidity. Industrious hot-spotters could probably figure out exactly where this is. I don’t care. Be my guest. Let me know how it goes!
I saw this on Facebook the other day and it made me cry. I’m not sure if that’s saying much since I cry (when I’m not enraged) at parallel or crooked lines. I somehow developed a soft spot for Jimmy Stewart when I was a kid. I don’t really know much about him, but he reminds me of my maternal grandfather (whom I’m named after), both a little in looks and demeanor. They’re from the same general generation. I do remember him being made fun of sometime in the ’80s for publishing a book of poems. I believe some thought he, a movie star, had no right. I might even have agreed at the time.
Not now. The world can’t absorb enough enthusiasm and admiration for dogs. Especially not now. So let yourself go and listen to him. I think you’ll find something to like about it.
