Deer Hunt 2010

The deer hunt this year was full of adventures! We drove up the mountain in the pouring rain. Had to chain up the truck after sliding off the road around a 180 degree turn. But we made it up. The rain turned into snow and it was a day or two of blizzards. But finally it calmed down and we had a chance to get out and look for some deer. I didn't put in for a tag due to pregnancy, so Joe was the one with a tag this year. We had decided to go for a drive in the truck and take the kids along for some road hunting. Not expecting to see anything of course. About 200 yards out of camp, I spotted some deer about 20 yards off the road. It took a minute to notice the teeny tiny 2x2 horns on one of them. Joe jumped out of the truck and said "should I shoot it?" I said "your kids are with ya! Of course you gotta shoot it!" So he shot the little deer. Joe went to find where the deer had fallen and I took a minute to pull the truck off the road. By that time, Emmett had fallen asleep, so he napped in the truck while the other kids and I hiked up to the deer. Joe quickly cleaned the deer and his dad brought a 4-wheeler to haul it back to camp. (Cause I wasn't going to put it in the back of my suburban)

It was neat to have the kids there to see it! They were sure excited!

A total of 3 deer were taken by our camp this year. Then, the night before we left, a storm dumped more snow on us. We loaded up and were the last of our camp to head down the mountain. Joe pulled the camp trailer with his truck and I pulled the ATV trailer with mine. We slowly made our way. Even with chains on the truck, Joe was slipping and sliding all over the snowy roads. It killed me to watch it as I followed him! On every corner, the trailer would slide off the road. There was one corner where Joe had no choice but to take the chain saw and cut down trees so that the trailer could make it through. Finally, we made it to the half way point where we thought that the hard stuff was over. That's when I started to pick up on our radio the trouble that the rest of Joe's family was in. I heard snatches of conversation that such as "do we need to unhook the trailer?" "wasn't able to stop" and so forth. The going was so slow and at one point I had to stop on a hill while Joe slowly went through a dip in the road. That's when I heard someone laying on their truck horn and seconds later my truck lurched forward as a white pickup truck slammed into me from behind. I pulled forward to a wide spot in the road and got out to check the damage. Luckily, all the damage was done to the other guy. The ATV trailer was much stronger than the front of his truck. The other truck had no tire chains and the idiot driver was going way to fast down the hill and slammed his breaks, couldn't stop and slid into me. I'm glad that it was the ATV trailer he hit and not our camp trailer!

We didn't think the roads could get worse until we got into full radio range with the rest of the family. We learned that there was a steep decent with a turn at the bottom coming up that even with chains was causing problems. Jon's truck and trailer couldn't stop and went down it at dangerously high speeds and luckily made it okay. Melanie and Fred had got out of control and jack-knifed their truck and trailer. The parent's had got out of control and jack-knifed their trailer. They rest had to unhook a trailer and use a truck and tow chain to hold back the trailers to make the decent. So Joe had me pull over and wait at the top while he tried to go down. They hooked a chain from our trailer to Jess and Elliott's truck to hold him back. They slowly started the decent. After they left my view I suddenly hear over the radio Joe's voice. "Tighten the chain! You've got to keep it tight!" Then I hear Dad's voice "Joseph, we are slipping a bit back here." The Joe again. "Your running over the chain! Don't run over the chain!" Then Dad "Joseph, we are on the chain. We are sliding, go faster, we are going to hit you" Now Elliott is driving and I can hear him in the background saying, "Aaahhhhh! Wowwww! Aaaaaaahhh!" Then the radio goes silent. I'm a nervous wreck, praying out loud, "Please let them be safe! Please don't let my trailer and truck be wrecked! Then finally over the radio dad says "Whew! That was close! I think you would have been better off without our help." I let out the biggest sigh of relief! They had barely stopped in time before ramming into the back of our camp trailer! Joe rode back up to drive my truck and trailer down, which we had no problems with. We all made it down safe! Some had some damage to their trucks and trailers, but we are grateful that's all! The moral of the story is, WAIT IT OUT! The snow had melted by that afternoon and we could have just left later and made it with no problems. And that was the incredible end to an incredible deer hunt!