Outdoors

By Bill Barker

For the Gazette-Times

In about nine months, my hunting partner and I hope to be heading toward the rising sun. Could end up near Rome and its magnificent pillars.

That's the Rome in Oregon where the Owyhee River cut and ground away soft rock - leaving harder spires - on its search for a route to the sea.

But I doubt it because we've hunted the Owyhee units within recorded memory.

Maybe it will be the adjacent Whitehorse unit, containing the Alvord Desert, which lacks food and water to support much of a deer population.

We'll be discussing our possibilities.

Why choose such places?

Because chances of drawing a tag are better and we both enjoy rim rocks, mountains, canyons and desert areas where roads allow access into Public lands, then end abruptly. It is from these endings, where many hunters turn around, that we begin.

Hiking toward country where deer go when pressured by too many people. The farther away from vehicular access you get, the less hunters and - it used to work this way - more deer you see.

Of course this only holds true if there is a source of both food and water within a few miles of the area.

The latter two factors could lead us toward either Leslie Gulch or Succor Creek because both have abundant food and water, as well as areas only accessible to those willing to become foot weary among towering rims and pinnacles.

Such surreal scenery could be detrimental to my chances of success. It tends to draw eyes and mind away from immediate goals. Each gargoyle-like outcrop magnetically funnels vision toward another that resembles a castle, perhaps with turrets along its walls.

Now that's not so bad unless you've a mind, like mine, ready to populate those walls with shadowy defenders massed to repel the phantasmagoric hordes issuing from the cavern below.

You can lose yourself in wonderment and fantasizing while hunkering there.

No.

Maybe we'd better head for the spot in the Sheepshead Mountains that Larry used to hunt.

It has the attraction of an intermittent stream - he said it was the only year-round rivulet - below shaded rims where an occasional buck beds down during daytime heat.

I've been studying maps and think I've found the right road. We'll confer about that, as well as some other factors affecting our possible success, such as the OSU football games and cell phone reception.

What do football and cell phones have to do with hunting? One year, quite a bit …

I'd hunted the desert all morning, fruitlessly, and returned to camp in time for the game because: I like football; the Beavers had been playing fairly well; the game was against USC, who I really don't like; and my feet hurt after seven hours of walking.

The Beavers played poorly.

Near sundown, I became so disgusted that an evening hunt seemed a good thing to do.

It was.

I got a buck not far from camp.

As it turned out, that was my only chance at success because Mahlon's cell phone allowed me to call home, both to report in and find out how all was going.

I was informed that things weren't good. "You'd better head home tomorrow …"

Since we both enjoy football, we'll want an area where we might get reception for a game.

Leslie Gulch and Succor Creek are deep in canyons, cutting off those magic rays that carry voices over radios and cell phones.

The Sheepsheads are likelier to allow reception. That, depending on circumstances, could affect hunting and peace of mind.

Follow the twisted logic?

One thing we're looking forward to, bucks or not, is another opportunity to see, feel and smell the desert.

The spicy fragrance of sage as you brush against it in the temporarily moist moments before sunrise lingers in memories of past hunts.

Whining, ever-present winds changing pitch while scraping through crevices in rims are Sirens calling us to the outback where the depth of night skies makes the concept of infinity almost graspable to a normal person.

We make our journeys for far more than bucks.

Bill Barker can be reached at billbarker@comcast.net.