The first time I hiked up this trail in search of small game
and trout was nearly 40 years ago. It
wasn’t even wilderness back then. I had
a single shot Stevens .410 shotgun on my shoulder, an Eagle Claw Trailmaster
rod in my pack, and two cans of Vienna sausages for lunch, with visions of
squirrels, grouse, snowshoe hares, and brook trout spinning around my
head. Things really haven’t changed all
that much. Old habits die hard.
This year marked the sixth annual weekend that my group of
friends gather for an extended backpack weekend devoted to small game hunting
and fly fishing in remote Colorado wilderness.
It’s especially rewarding because it’s the very same country I’ve been
hunting, fishing, and backpacking in nearly all my life. It’s my home away from home, my stomping
grounds.
We always take this trip the first full weekend of
October. It’s a week after the close of
big game archery season and a week before the beginning of the first combined
rifle big game season. It also coincides
most years with the full color of the changing aspens. The days are warm and the nights are
crisp. It’s perfect.
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| The Stomping Grounds, downtown Noneofyourdamnbusiness, Colorado! |
The bottom third of the hike always provides the best pine
squirrel hunting, and this trip was no exception. We had barking squirrels just a half-mile up
the trail, squirrels zipping across the trail ahead of us, squirrels running up
tree trunks…squirrels everywhere!
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| The first pine squirrel of the trip! |
I had recently gotten a new handmade squirrel call from
Larry Gresser at Prairie Game Calls in Channahon, Illinois.
Larry makes some amazing squirrel calls, and
I my new call got some barks.
However,
pine squirrels will bark at just about anything, including human voices, dogs,
thrown rocks, and the report from a .22 rifle.
Although the Prairie call produces some outstanding barks, the “chrrrr”
of the pine squirrel is impossible to produce with any call I’ve found.
No other tree squirrel in North America barks
like this.
So, my quest to find the
perfect pine squirrel call continues!
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My squirrel call from Prairie Game Calls. Mine is made out
of a beautiful piece of Asian satinwood. |
I carried my new Ruger stainless 10/22 Takedown, topped with
a Leupold VX-1 2-7X28 Rimfire scope, in Warne QD rings on a Leupold Rifleman
base.
What I had hoped would be the
perfect backcountry small game rifle soon proved itself, and continued to do so
all weekend, taking squirrels and snowshoe hares out to nearly 40 yards.
I dialed the scope in at 4X and left it
there, and it worked great.
At a loaded
weight of 5 pounds, six ounces, this rifle was easy to carry, made even easier
because I had it cradled in a
Kifaru Gunbearer while I was hiking.
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| A very capable critter-getter, my Ruger stainless 10/22 Takedown. |
Once we hiked through the squirrel hotspot, we continued up
to our hidden basecamp, nearly five miles from the trailhead, at an elevation
of eleven thousand feet.
My good friend,
Patrick Smith (founder of Mountainsmith, and owner of Kifaru, International)
had brought his
12-man tipi, and we had distributed the shelter, poles, and
pegs amongst ourselves at the trailhead, each man helping with the load.
Carrying a
12-man tipi may sound heavy, but
its ultralight paraglider fabric makes it totally man-carryable.
Along with the tipi, we also carried in an
ultralight titanium wood stove, another of Patrick’s ingenious designs.
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| A Kifaru 12-man tipi and titanium collapsible wood stove. Our backcountry palace! |
Speaking of ingenious designs, Patrick also hauled in a
small rice cooker, which works wonderfully well as a tiny backcountry pressure
cooker for small game meat. One
complaint that always comes up is how tough squirrel and rabbit meat can be
when grilled over coals on an open fire, whether on a spit or on a grill. The pressure cooker totally eliminates that problem,
and after 40 minutes in the pressure cooker, the meat from the squirrels and
snowshoe hares literally fell off the bone!
We were very appreciative of the testing that Patrick had done with this
method of cooking small game meat, and that he had hauled this treasure in on
his back!
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| Snowline Technical Mountain Gear pressure cooker. Weight: 1 lb., 13 oz. |
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| Halved and quartered pine squirrels, ready for pressure cooking. |
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| The pressure cooker and the stew, cooking on the Kifaru wood stove. |
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| A pile of falling-off-the-bone tender squirrel meat! |
Our evening meal the first night consisted of the meat
cooked in the pressure cooker and an assortment of fresh vegetables that I had
brought in. While the meat cooked, the
onions, garlic, red and yellow peppers, zucchini squash, and baby potatoes
simmered in chicken stock in another pot.
Both pots fit perfectly on top of the Kifaru titanium wood stove. Once done, all of this was combined into a
stew that I dubbed “Rodent Medley”. To
say it was delicious is an understatement!
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The fresh veggies I hauled in my backpack. Baby potatoes, peppers,
zucchini squash, and mushrooms. |
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| Rodent Medley! A backcountry epicurean delight! |
Late the first night I awakened to the sound of snow sifting
down the fabric of the ultralight tarp I was sleeping under. Rising the next morning to fresh tracking
snow, I was able to put the stalk on a nice snowshoe hare, which became food
for the second night’s dinner.
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| A snowshoe hare, taken in fresh tracking snow. |
The second day of our trip was devoted to fly fishing, more
specifically to tenkara. Several of us
had brought our tenkara rods and a few simple flies, and we knew from past
experience that the creek nearby was home to lots of 7-9” brook trout. With a complete tenkara fishing kit weighing
less than five ounces, the ability to take it anywhere you go in the
backcountry makes this a great way to
feed yourself in the wilderness. I
arrived back at camp late in the afternoon on the second day with four trout to
share. Nearly everyone else had caught a
few as well. The “surf” in our “surf ‘n
turf” meal was secured! We ate the trout
as an appetizer, and dined once again on Rodent Medley stew. I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed a meal more!
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| Grilling brook trout on the coals. |
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| My tenkara rod and my .22 rifle. Making meat in the backcountry! |
Later, after dark on the second night, we were pounded with
rain, graupel, hail, and wind. It’s a
good feeling, snug and warm in a down bag, inside a bombproof shelter,
listening to heavy weather drum against the tarp while lightning bounces off nearby
ridges. I can really sleep well after a
storm like that.
Late the last morning we pried ourselves from our campsite
and started our hike back down. It
always amazes me how easy this hike is going out and how difficult it can be
going in. You really can’t appreciate it
until you hike downhill for five miles going out. After easing off our packs at the trailhead,
shaking hands, and saying goodbye to good friends, we all drove home our
separate ways, dreaming of next year’s trip in search of fins and fur.
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| Rob, on the hike out. |
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| Ori, Randall, and I. |
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| My sensei, Patrick Smith, and I. |
