Local adventurer shares memories from the mountain

Editors note - “Memories from the mountain” is an ongoing series by Bigfork resident and adventurer-cinematographer Peter Drowne. Drowne’s travels have taken him to six continents over the last 50 years.

My booted tracks had just crossed the zigzag patterns of water coursing under the winter’s shelves of ice.

As I scanned to watch the edges of an alpine meadow for predator tracks, a slight south breeze told of spring’s coming.

A slanting sunrise caught the edges of fresh coyote tracks as I chose the site for a feathered lure that might just get the interest of this bush-tailed dog.

The youngest of the deer had been struggling in the deep snow still standing in the forest…as their tracks showed the use of their now limited strength in the “built up winter whiteness.” With these youngsters about, I knew that coyotes would not be far behind.

I untied a piece of brain-tanned deer skin from around the tang-mounted peep sight on my rifle and checked its sight picture with the front bead sight on the pristine hillside. Over the years, I’ve found that this piece of chamois-type leather (once it had been hand washed) was excellent for cleaning scopes and other sight systems without leaving any residue or accumulating moisture.

Next, I loaded my 38-40 lever action and set the safety. This rifle has been my comrade on many years of hunting days, the position of my feathered decoy on its branch-mounted swivel, along with a bit of rank venison from my bait pouch would catch the slight breeze and the feather’s moving would catch the coyote’s attention.

I crouched myself on a newly gathered pile of pine boughs at the base of a tree recessed from the meadow’s edge and put some streaks of charcoal on my face with random slants. I then used a mouth call I have developed over the years to simulate a small animal’s scream. In between my calls, the silence of this wild place bolstered my spirit again and again.

While the world moves around us in so many ways, I was the only man soul here in this shadow.

I then began the wait for the coyote whose tracks I had found. My thoughts were flooded with other such “waiting times” in past years when I had the blessing of being “alone” in the woods and found my wits out matched by the truly crafty four-footed hunter whose tracks were so familiar to me.

Some hours later, which seemed in retrospect like a grouping of selected moments, the edges of a moving shadow forecast the coming of the big bush-tailed dog…the safety came off of the my 38-40…and as I slowly brought the old Winchester to my shoulder, I was once again a truly timeless part of another “memory from the mountain.”