*Hunting Camp*
By: enok45
8 May 2007

Years ago my friends and me were in hunting camp. There are 15 of us and we have been hunting this area for 20 years. This was the end of the 1st day of opening weekend five of as already have deer, and since we all pool our meat I can already see steaks in my freezer. So as we are finishing our last beers we were all talking about where we were going to hunt the next day, we all have hunted this old guys property most our lives so the thought of getting lost or ever being in danger was a joke. Mr. Grimm is a cattle farmer don't know how much land he has but there is mountains on his property. And his neighbor, Mr. Zirba, is a pig farmer another good friend and there is a big old mountain in between the two.

Ok this is where it gets interesting. Although we had been hunting there all those years we had never really hunted the land in between the two farms, so my buddy john and i decided to take one of the old logging roads over to the pig farm.

It had snowed over a foot that night so we started out and the road was nice and wide as we climbed in elevation but as we kept going a drop off started to appear to the right [we were traversing the side of this mountain]. About a half hour later the road started getting a little narrow for comfort. I have a Toyota 4x4 and got to the point we only had about 4' on either side of the truck. Then the damn road started to slant [and no it wasn't towards the mountain on my left]. We were almost at the top and were sure the road would get wider.

Well about a mile up the road there was a big tree with its roots that had grown just under the surface of the road and they are slanting [along with the road] towards this cliff. at this point we had gone too far. We stopped, looked the situation over decided it would be too dangerous to try and back up so I stuck it in four wheel low and the front set of tires went over ok but as the rear tires started over we could feel the rear end start to fish tail.

We both swear to this day that there was something holding my right rear tire up, so I punched the gas and somehow got it straight and by the grace of GOD a little ways up the road did start to widen and we made it to the other side.

[Lessons learned]

  1. The night before we had been drinking with the sons of both the farmers and knew we wanted to try that road. We should have talked with them about how safe it would be.
  2. Never have the mindset that I know these woods like the back of my hand. For one thing the woods are a big place and 5 years ago that might have been a safe journey but conditions change and
  3. It was stupid for both of us to get into the truck and try and make it over the roots. I should have done it and if something would have happened, well I guess my friend John would now be writing this story but we both wouldn't have died.
sincerely,
enok45



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