Mountain Man Myth

Listen up all you eastern state hunters and in particular those of you from the great state of New York, cause I'm here to tell you that all the stories you hear about the mighty mountain men of the Rocky Mountains are myths and if anyone tries to tell you differently, I can't spell the word that I would use to tell them where to get off. It sounds a lot like a Bronx cheer....but not quite.

My two hunting buddies, Jim Picard and Terry Wetmiller, and I spent nine days camping and hunting in the Rocky Mountains just north of the town of Gypsum. There were about 30 hunters from all over Colorado scattered in campsites around the same mountain we were on, and we had the opportunity to meet and talk with quite a few of them and swap stories of one kind or another the same as you would expect to do in a hunting camp anywhere. The dialog went something like this:

"Where you guys from?"

"Oh, we're from over yonder where the mountains are really high and the livin' ain't so dang easy," usually followed by a big spit of tobacco juice.

Then those who were at least partly sociable would ask "And where you boys from?"
"New York."

That was always followed by "Oh!" or "Really."

"Well, we're from Upstate New York," like that meant anything to them.

"Upstate New York? Where's that?"

"Upstate!" you cow flipping, paddy picking yodel. "You know, way up north of New York City. We live closer to Montreal than we do to New York City."

"Montreal....that's in Canada ain't it?"

"Yep, sure is partner. Way up there where they speak some damn foreign language or other."

Once we got by all of this testosterone spewing stuff and them lowering their voices to a level only the coyotes and their mothers could hear, we asked how they hunted in these mountains to compare with what we did back here in the Adirondacks. You've got to remember, this was our first experience hunting in the Rockies, and we wanted to be sure that we extended the same courtesies and practiced the same hunter ethics we would back here. And here's where the rub came in.

We inevitably got this response: "Well, I've been hunting up here for over a hundred and twenty years." Come to find out as our week progressed that their entire hunting season was limited to only one week per year. So one of our hunting seasons equaled about 12 or 14 of theirs.

When we visited the various campsites, we saw enough equipment to support an African safari. These guys tote more stuff up into these mountains than we would ever expect or think about back here. Talk about "roughin it," these guys haven't got a clue.

When we finally "get off road," we came to an area where all these guys pull over and "chain up." More strutting and spitting takes place as tire chains are mounted on all four wheels of the 4X4 vehicles to be sure they can climb the entry road which we were led to believe was the roughest, toughest dirt road this side of the Himalayas. To be prepared, we were told to buy $145.00 worth of tire chains to drive up a road no more difficult than Shelving Rock Road on a bad day. But by the time I got those chains mounted on my Jeep Wrangler, my shoulders and hips were just swaggering all over the place and I would have bet you I could drive straight up the side of the Grand Canyon with no brakes.

The last thing we learned was that these guys usually don't hunt alone. They hunt in pairs and sit on the side of a hill overlooking a big mountain pasture and wait for an elk or mule deer to ramble on by. And when they see one, everybody starts shooting until the animal either goes down or manages to high tail it back to cover. They call it "gang shooting." They told us "one shot isn't enough, just keep on shooting until it goes down." Sportsmen, my butt! Ever hear about shot placement, boys?

So, hold your heads high, gentlemen. We've got nothing to envy. There's no myth in the Rockies, just a gang of shooters.

See you outdoors!