Once upon a time, my husband and some friends were planning a hunting trip to Colorado, elk and mule deer hunting. I had heard many stories about past hunts and asked if I could go also.
I had hunted even before meeting my husband, and wanted a chance to see game, other then deer, rabbits, squirrel, etc.
Some of his group were not too happy about having a “woman go on a hunting trip”. Everything from bad luck to scratching and itching whenever they want.
Anyway, my husband said I could go. The morning we left, I had a terrible head and chest cold. I don’t know if it was emotions from leaving my teenage daughters with my parents for 10 days or what, but I felt awful. We pulled an enclosed trailer behind the truck with all of our supplies in it. We unhooked when we got to the camp, so we could drive around and check out the area.
Our cabin was very nice. It was more like a huge storage shed converted into such. The loft could sleep 8 comfortably, in sleeping bags, and there were 2 sets of bunk beds, and table with chairs and a wood burner for the rest of it.
The bathroom, however, was about 100 yards away, down and up a ravine. It was not enclosed and had a blue tarp in front of it to hide you sitting down. Your head and shoulders were above it looking at the cabin. Plus, the guy that let us stay there said they found mountain lion tracks as big as a bread plate, so I definitely was not going to the bathroom at night…
After stomping around a few days and not seeing but one elk that was so far away, I thought it was a dog, we decided to drive around and scout some places they might be.
The sign at the bottom of the hill said “Badger Mountain”. We started up in our dualie (a truck with 4 wheels across the back), and the road kept narrowing. I was on the outside edge and was seeing tree tops and a sheer drop off. I HATE heights especially combined with a drop off with no guard rails…
At one point, the road looked like it was smaller then our truck and I asked about it. My husband said that one tire of our back 4 was off the road, hanging over the abyss. Ok, so severe panic set in and I started yelling, “Let me out of this truck, right now”. If there had been a back window into the bed of the truck, I would have been out, but the road widened a little and he stopped for me to get out.
I don’t know what a person would do if someone was coming down the hill in a vehicle. There was NO passing room. It looked like we were about at a 500 foot drop off. I wished they had put me to sleep before we left, like the old “A Team” used to with B.A.
So, I’m walking down the mountain and began thinking, “This is called Badger Mountain. Why in the world did I leave my gun in the truck?”
A little while later, the guys came and picked me up. They found a slightly wider spot up the way, and eeked it back and forth until they got it turned around.
My husband never has gone back to Colorado since. Maybe too much yet. 🙂