California Wasn’t Brought Up That Way

September 30, 2000

View Of Morro Bay

 It had been a long day.  We had hiked up to the top of Cerro Alto – one of the tallest mountains in the Santa Lucia Mountains that overlooks both Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo, California.  It was a five- mile, round-trip hike that climbed about 1600 feet through the chaparral – the California scrub brush.  It was not Texas-summer-hot, but temperatures hovered around F 95 and there was little cooling breeze.  With every bend in the trail, we stopped to view the scenery and take little breathers.  About halfway to the top, in a tree-covered, dry creek, we found a rock to sit on in the shade by the trail.  The sounds of some kind of birds could be heard in the brush below.  We sat still and waited to see if the birds would show themselves.  We could see outlines as they flitted closer and closer through the underbrush.  Finally, one emerged and lit on a perch in clear view.  “I think it is a Wrentit,” I muttered to Pat.  “But I can’t see the stripes on its breast.” 

Trail To Top

Then, as the bird turned to reveal its breast, a voice announced:  “I am coming through!  There are two more behind me.”  Three mountain bikers flew past -- nearly running over our toes -- and continued down the steep, rocky, dusty trail, leaving only a cloud of dust where the birds had been.

Lunch on the Trail

  Perfect timing!  In an hour of hiking, we had seen only one other group of hikers – a woman and a man who carried a yearling child in a backpack.  Therefore, the appearance of the bikers was startling and completely unexpected.  Somewhat reluctant to resume our hot climb, we decided to rest a few moments longer.  Again, we could hear the birds in the brush.  Within a few minutes they reappeared on the trail, gave us a frontal view, and sure enough, they were the shy little Wrentit babblers which are found only on the west coast.  We had heard the accelerating notes of their vocalization – like the sounds of a bouncing ping-pong ball – earlier, so we knew they were in the area.  We have heard many of them but have seen only a couple in our lifetime, so we were delighted to see them again.

With lifted spirits, we resumed our trek.  The backpack containing lunch and raincoats seemed to grow heavier.  I began to wonder about the wisdom of including bird books, along with the water, in my fanny pack.  Finally, we puffed our way to the top where we enjoyed an outstanding view of the Los Osos Valley that runs between San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay.  To the northeast, we could see the town of Atascadero and to the northwest, the coastal town of Cambria – near the Hearst San Simeon Castle.  It was a great view! 

Scanning the horizon with our binoculars for Condors, we saw none in the valley below, where we had seen one the year before.  So, we descended down the trail till we found some shade under

a small tree.  Peanut butter sandwiches, an apple, and some warm water provided the fuel we needed for the trip down the hot trail.  It was a rather uneventful trip down, even though we saw several interesting birds.                    

  By now, we were hot, tired and dragging.  Then, when we were beginning to wonder if this hot trail would ever end, Pat heard a voice somewhere on the trail in front of us.  Around a bend in the trail -- which wound along a stream bed in a deep valley -- we saw a man on his hands and knees.  My first thought was that it must be one of the bikers that had passed us earlier.  Maybe he had crashed and hurt himself.  As we came closer, we could make out a large backpack lying on the trail beside the man.  A small black and white dog stood by his side.  As we approached, he looked up at us and, without standing, inched the back-pack out of our way so we could pass on the narrow trail.  The man appeared to be sick or exhausted.  I guessed that he might be in his mid-50's.  A little grey hair stuck out from under his sweat-stained, baseball cap.  Then we noticed that he had been carrying not only a large, heavy backpack, he also was also carrying a second, small backpack, a rifle and the head of a four-point buck.  His clothes were wet with sweat and dusty and dirty.  “Can we help?” I asked. 

“No,” he said weakly.  “I’ll be all right.  I just need to catch my breath.”  He drank a couple of swallows of water from his canteen, then fed his dog a little water from a second canteen.  “Can’t give him too much or he will get sick to his stomach,” the hunter said.

“Well,” I said.  “I would not feel good about leaving you in this condition.   I could carry your heavy backpack .”

“No!” he said.  “That pack weighs about 80 pounds and might hurt your back”.  

“O.K., but we can at least carry your rifle, the small backpack, and the deer head,” I replied.  “It must be about a half mile back to the parking area and we would be happy to help.”  Looking at this exhausted fellow somehow caused us to forget how tired we had just been a few minutes earlier.  He was obviously a man who took great pride in finishing this hunting trip by bringing home the meat by himself.  He really did not want our help but found himself in a dilemma.  He could maybe finish the hike by himself, but he was really tired.  Obtaining help from a couple of wimpy, older, bird-watchers was probably a hard pill to swallow.

         

Pat with buck's head

Our first thought was that maybe he was doing something illegal, like hunting out of season.  Maybe, he did not want us carrying his pack because it was full of marijuana.

He crawled over into the shade of a small tree and leaning against it, and breathing heavily, he reluctantly agreed to let us help.  While he rested, he told us about the events leading up to his current situation.  “I arrived here this morning before daybreak.  I have lived in this area all my life, so had a good idea where to go to find a buck.  I climbed over this steep mountain and into the valley on the other side and stopped to view the side-hill.  To my surprise, this four-point buck walked out right in front of me.  I shot the deer, which field dressed about 140 pounds, stripped off all the meat and stuffed it in small bags that are now in the backpack.  This process took quite a while, and I now faced the prospect of carrying this load back over the mountain.  I quickly found that I could not carry everything up the steep slope at once.  It necessary to carry only part of the load up the hill, then return down for the rest.  Coming down this side of the mountain, it was difficult to obtain footholds in the rocky hillside, especially with this heavy load on my back.  Somewhere on the way down, I began to run out of energy.  Guess I got a little hypoglycemic.  I was trying to hurry so that the meat would not spoil in this heat.  At one point, I decided that I could take the backpack full of meat off my back and simply roll it down the hill.  It worked all right for a while, but as I approached this trail, the rolling backpack hit the trail, bounced into a small tree, careened sideways, teetered momentarily, then fell down the steep slope into the creek bottom.  In the process of dragging this heavy pack back up the steep, rocky, hot slope up to the trail, I just ran out of energy.  You arrived to find me in this condition.”

When he had regained his breath, we decided to start the final half-mile.  Pat carried his small backpack and I carried his rifle and the deer head.  He carefully unloaded the rifle before handing it to me.  Then he filled out the deer tag and tied it to the antlers.  He sat on the ground in front of his pack and slipped on the shoulder straps.  He rolled over on all fours to leverage the heavy pack onto his back.  Slowly, he stood up and staggered down the trail under the heavy weight.  He stopped frequently to rest, so I went ahead and left the deer head and rifle in our car, then returned back up the trail to help with the heavy pack.  I traveled only a short distance before Pat and the hunter appeared.  As he placed the heavy pack on a picnic table, a smile of relief crossed on his face.  (It might have taken us only about 20 minutes to make the half-mile.)  “It would have taken me an hour to return without your help,” he claimed.

By now it was late afternoon and the rays of the sun no longer reached into the depths of the canyon.  “Is your wife the nervous type?” I asked.  “At what point would she come looking for you or call the Sheriff?”  

“Yes, she worries about me hunting by myself, but she will be all right,” he mumbled.

We loaded all his stuff into the back of his pickup, he drank a cold Coke and some of his water.  Now, he had obviously regained some energy.  He told us a couple of hunting stories and about the really tough guys he once hunted with and how his son got lost on a hunting trip.  He also explained how his dad taught him to survive for a day on only one quart of water.  “Today, I took two canteens of water; one for my dog and one for me.”  

“You must be dehydrated,” I said.

“No, I just have low blood sugar,” he claimed.  

“Why didn’t you throw away about half of that meat?”  I asked.  “You might have really hurt yourself carrying such a heavy load.  Or you might have had a heart attack.”

“It is against the law to discard the meat,” he said.  “Besides, I wasn’t brought up that way.”  I decided that he was explaining some kind of frontier ethics about not wasting meat – a notion that resides in the heart of the “true” hunter.

Then he thanked us for our help and explained that he needed to get the venison in the freezer.  We followed as he led the way in his pickup, down the narrow, winding park road toward the main highway.  A short distance down the road, a white car whipped over in front of his pickup and blocked his way.  The woman driver in the car glared at the hunter for a short while, then pulled into the right lane to let him pass.  The hunter motioned for us to come up beside him.  As we approached, a wry smile wrinkled his face and his eyes twinkled.  “That was my wife,” he announced.  We all laughed.  It had been another interesting day in Central California.