SPRING HIKE 2021!

Well boys, it’s scheduled! This weekend the Rangers will attempt to find Paul Bunyan’s second cousins brother, Uncle Casey Jones’s old logging railroads remains. Where will this march take the gang to this time? One side of the target is mapped, the other isn’t…..guess where we’re going!!!!?? Stay tuned for a pictorial essay of the adventure!
BTW – still waiting on the photo of Probie’s very first ADK mule!!!!

WORK WEEKEND 2020!

Everyone gets:
One pack of last years hot dogs
One pack of last years hot dog buns
One six pax beer

Everyone brings:
Chainsaw
Oil/gas
Map
GPS
Radio
Sleeping Bag

Everyone must:
Go into woods Saturday morning solo starting at points 2.36 miles from each other
Returns from woods Sunday afternoon, at starting point
Go home.

WEEK SEVEN!

Friday:
Leaddog and Toucher (road monkeys) arrive to yet another snowed in road to hell, thanks to more warmy-changy which was on-going at the time of arrival. Both shovels their way in once again, sanding the road for the remainder of the crew. Robba arrives and leave his truck down below, with Probies and…… “Pneumatic-Cat” shows finally, with strict orders for camp-arrest – as dictated by HIS Denmama!
Warmy-Changy is showing its true self, as eight inches pile up on the already present five to eight on the ground. Preliminary camp closure duties are performed, it’s the end boys! Pie-whore promptly gets stuck in the Chevy trap, which led to a trapped Chevy! Pneumatic-Cat and Pie-Whore keeps the fire burning.

Saturday:
Now that the warmy-changy deposit is complete, far away adventures have been snuffed. Stev’n arrives, now in line behind the two trappiezed. The crew gets the remaining vehicles up the hill or back down…. Probie suits up and is ready for the hunt, Leaddog decides it’s way too early to stay in camp and prepare dinner, so he joins Probie in a very local hunt. The two guilt’s the few left in camp, and leaves Pneumatic-Cat, Pie-whore and Spike to grin at each other. The only lifeforms seen were 12 turkeys, which walked right between two other Troopers without notice! And we’re hunting deer? After slogging through almost knee deep snow, the crew gives up and relinquishes the woods to its denizens.

Sunday:
Now to get off the hill! Leaving can be a bit nerve wracking, but no one went over the bank this time. A clean camp was left once again for the upcoming snowmosexual season, which apparently was already underway!

Synopsis:
The gang gets bushwacked by Pierre and Antoinette, including BoB in a very far away place.
Soysauce was banned, for one dinner and was returned to its prominent position as a marinade.
Warmy-changy deposits seven (7) inches of rain, directly over the hunting grounds.
The road into camp is washed out by the above…..including the ladder to the cable.
A full day was devoted to a road rebuild by the Road Monkeys – see the photos!
Digger gets the Hong-Kong flu, and misses week three!
A successful Alaskan Adventure was undertaken, five days of hunting!
Mule one is taken, during the Alaskan Adventure!
A collection of Halloween themed balloons was removed from the woods.
Mule two – “The call of the Raven!”
FUber is established.
The gang experiences the worst egress from the hill….ever.
Road repairs and sanding, road repairs and sanding….
Polecat gets the Hong Kong flu from Digger –
Due to the illness he’s now know as the “Pneumatic-Cat”!
Leaddog gets “thieved!”
The gang cleans up after yet another Nor’easter.
The camp made more revenue from FYB than ever.
A user flat rate was established, Pneumatic-Cat was very happy!

WEEK SIX!

Friday:
The gang returns to yet ANOTHER round of road repair, (actually road treatment) to gain access to F Troop’s HQ. The entire length is sanded and finally they crew gets into camp. Once the remainder arrives, off they go to search for what’s left in the woods. “What’s left” are the mules, who apparently left the area of operations. A small local drive is conducted, all meets their intended targets with no results. Ray earns his “yellow trail badge” 🙂 There’s still “one” out there……

Saturday:
All assembles and a hunt of the left side of the creek is in order. Watchers are sent and set, drivers climb to the clouds and some sign is actually seen! Leaddog, who for some reason got to actually go on watch has a mule sneak by him early on. Just out of sight, the mule walks and disappears as they normally do. A recon of the mules tracks results in finding that said mule stopped, and was watching the watcher! Was it “thieved?” Perhaps, as the wind was blowing in the exact direction from the watcher to the mule…..tracks are seen up top, but nothing pushed to anyone.

Sunday:
Here we go again – A Nor’easter has been scheduled by the warmy-changy godz, so all prepares to get the hell off the hill, before yet another pucker-upper ride down the driveway occurs. One week left, more snow is on the ground with more coming. At least there’s beer in the fridge!

WEEK FIVE – SUCCESS, AGAIN!

I’ll write the post at some point, put in a photo until then!

Friday:
Leaddog shows up in the pouring rain, snow – “snrain” and warms up the camp, Probie and Robba arrives and all three stare out the window watching the warmy-changy event unfold before their very eyes. Eventually it stops and the three finally get in the woods to verify if mules exist in a certain area. Probie to the area of the 10point watch, Robba does his Piney Knob recon, with Leaddog standing guard in the knolls. Not one track is seen, so all decides to exit via the third cable after Robba does his environmental duty by collecting yet another barrage of Halloween themed balloons. Back to camp at dark, where the plan for tomorrow is conceived with the rest of the arriving gang.

Saturday: “The Call of the Raven”
The gang has a plan! Four watchers slodge (yes, slodge) their way to Billy’s watch, with the other four being transported around the target hill by Ftroop’s Uber which is affectionately referred to as the “FUber”! The four climbs and drives the mountain, to the awaiting watchers on the other side, finding bear activity as well as dancing mules. Two of the drivers, being the farthest – find exceptional hunting as they make their way up the mountain. As they climb, staying within proximity of each other, tracks are observed! Old snowed in tracks slowly turn to fresher looking tracks, then getting even fresher as the hit the top. Up, down back and forth these track go, looking like a he-mule was chasing she-mules. At the top, tracks so fresh are seen that everyone is on alert. A quick call from the outboard driver (no, no vessels were involved) asking the position of the driver to his left by using the call of the Raven, which was quickly returned – led to the report(s) of the rifle….the mule was bedded down between the two who were less than 100 feet apart! During the wait of their comrades with arms, the two almost gets run over by the mistress mule, less than 10 feet away….

When the dust settled, on the ground was a very nice looking nine-pointer! All assembles at the kill zone, photos taken, stories swapped and now the drag begins straight downhill to the awaiting FUber, who just got back to camp before be re-summoned to extricate mule two to camp. Joyous celebration is in order, which was joyous indeed! 😉

Sunday:
The gang wakes up to a snow-globed-white-washed world. A decision is made to not hunt today, clean the mule and camp and attempt to get off the hill. The one-third mile egress off the hill was a knuckle-whitened, pucker-upper ride. Lindy goes first and apparently had no issue, Polecat next with some issue, and Leaddog with surmounting issues. Having no traction, and sliding $50K worth of truck almost off the hill he finally made bottom – but the remainder of the gang had other thoughts. Sanding of the tracks made their egress more negotiable, all exits the ride from frozen hell with the note to sand the track before attempting to leave under similar conditions again. Leaddogs blood pressure was most likley 200 over 300, or whatever the doctors consider stroke worthy during the five minutes of breath holding, please don’t go over the bank ride.

Noteworthy: The ride down Rt 10 was almost as bad, but at least there’s guard rails! 😉