A winter hike

This buck was photographed when there was little snow.

Soft, lazy flakes of snow drifted slowly down from a leaden sky as I decided to check out one of my hunting areas for some last-minutes bow hunting between Christmas and New Years Day. I may have bit off a bit more than I could comfortable eat.

I’d missed a few days with a tender back. It’s been broken twice years ago, and serves as a barometer of bad weather for me. And it can turn from good to bad in a minute or two, and hiking through thigh-deep snow isn’t the best thing for me to be doing.

I’d have been better served by donning one of the four pairs of snowshoes I owned. However, I chose to take the cross-country hike with only a ski pole to help me maintain some semblance of balance. I didn’t fall so it apparently worked/

My possibles bag had been forgotten the last time I sat in a pit blind, and I figured I’d check out that particular area, and pick up the bag with the black powder, sabots, bullets and the like while I was at it. So off I went in my shin-high rubber boots and my third leg, the ski pole.

Hiking was pretty slow going as I went from knee- to thigh-deep.

The first 10 steps was through snow that was up to my knees. The 11th step was almost up to my hips, and had it not been for the ski pole, I would have fallen in the deep snow. In and out of the knee- to thigh-deep snow, and after a quarter-mile of not seeing a track, I stopped for a break and to look around.

The fields were worse than the woods in one regards because the drifts were deeper. However, walking through deep snow is the woods is an interesting way to find out just how many ways there are to trip over things, get legs hung up in blackberry bushes, or finding slippery logs to slide down before catching a tree branch that breaks off in your hands.

I cut a trail angling through the woods, saw just one squirrel track from where a bushytail was scouring the woods in search of his stash of grub hidden for winter. The nearest corn field was almost a half-mile away, and I couldn’t see him going that fall.

Next was a pair of half-filled-in tracks traveling together. I followed them for a hundred yards, and they disappeared into another woodlot. They were probably looking for a deer away from it’s yarding area, but the tracks continue on a direction that didn’t coincide with my particular line of travel.

The next woodlot was eased into, and another trail through the woods was followed until it petered out in heavy woods before dropping downhill. I didn’t walk to go that way and have to climb out and up a steep hill in deep snow.

I kept looking for deer tracks in the snow but didn’t find any.

I kept looking ahead, and off to each side, trying to find any deer tracks. It was getting to be hard going, and I knew if it was tough on me, it would be worse for a deer. I kept circling back toward my car, and finally walked back out onto the road.

The hike felt good but my disappointment was hard to hide. If I’d covered that much ground, and not seen a single track, it tells me the deer pulled up stakes and headed for some thick cover that would provide some thermal cover for the animals.

I had picked up my possibles bag along the way, and had tested the ski pole with almost every step I’d taken, and had nothing to show for it except some good exercise. Perhaps in a day or two I take another hike in hopes of finding some deer but I suspect my deer hunting may be done for this year.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors