When the Fog Lifts

Hank peered out of his tent to find the fog had settled in with visibility at a low, but he didn’t sleep for as long as he’d thought, the red glows of sunrise had not begun. The snow was about knee deep. Hank reached for his flagging tape. “Looks like we are gonna have to come back to clean up camp, Amos.” The mule brayed and kicked at the snow around his feet. He lifted his hunting pack to his shoulders and tightened the straps. “Best conditions we’ve had yet, huh, Amos?”

Amos plodded through the snow towards Hank, brushing his nose against Hank’s shoulder. Hank gently caressed Amos as his other hand reached for the pack panniers. Hank first double-checked to make sure his fly rod was tightly secured inside. His arms were sluggish and stomach hollow. Then his hand went to the other pocket. He pulled out the feed cubes and treated Amos to his breakfast. The wind turned downslope as is common in the morning, and a musky wet barnyard smell overwhelmed Hank’s nose. “Looks like we are going to be climbing the mountain today, Amos. But you, I need you to look after camp.” Hank leaned his shoulder into the nose of Amos while petting his mane. Hank turned his headlamp to the black and foggy abyss to take his first step into the pines.

The early morning before dawn breaks in the San Juan Mountains is hardly imaginable to us. Hank drew a deep breath. Then as if blowing out a candle, he watched the cloud of vapor melt into the air. The frost had set in on the toes of his boots. His nose was leading him more than anything else with the strong scent of elk in the neighborhood. Each step he would lock his knee, stop, and focus on the mechanics of his breathing. Each stop his ears perked and eyes wide open turned his head from left to right.

A deep frosty indigo twilight began to appear across the sky, with only the present fog there to impede on Hank’s knowledge. Each step fed a new reverie of climbing these hills with his grandpa and father as a boy. His grandpa’s seemingly limitless patience with his hand on his shoulder. Each step he could feel the presence walking with him. An absurd form of courage is that of restraint he heard echoing through his mind. His father, already cresting the peak to glass every draw, count every tree, and enjoy his last cigarette before embarking on the group’s armed hike. Now he stepped here, alone through the dark, but felt closer to all those who came before him than ever before. His eyes could only see about 25 yards, but he’d come across fresh elk tracks scattered into the fresh snowpack. 

The skies ignited into a bright rosy hue with the peaks of the mountains catching soft orange glare before fading back into a vibrant magenta. The first layers of the fog began to vanish back into the atmosphere. Hank was stopped by a pungent smell of hay and musky undertone. His eyes turned to a steamy clump of bull scat covered in urine. Hank remembered there was a clearing that sat about another 50 yards from him where he’d had success as a young man. We’re all creatures of habit rang through his mind in his father’s voice.

The fog had peeled another layer, offering slightly more visibility. Hank could see the patch of aspens surrounded by the pines in which he used to sit. He continued on even slower than his leg-lock strategy normally would have given. The barnyard musk grew stronger with every foot of ground covered. The earlier blues had turned to bright fires across the western sky and Hank saw a golden eagle soaring on the wing. He clenched his fists and waded on through the snow, already noting the temperature was heating up in a hurry. Step by step he made it to the opening just past the aspens and pines.

He slowly unstrapped his pack, gently setting it behind the line of pines leading to the clearing he wanted to hunt. He knew the spot well and knew he would have good tree coverage with a view of the draw and that moving any further could spook anything around. He sprayed his water in the air still having a downslope wind for his cover. The fog had cleared a bit, but still offered only about fifty yards of visibility, and he knew that the watering hole sat almost at exactly one hundred that offered a group of quakies as a safe trail from the dark timber to the hole.

The frost gathered on his lashes, and his stomach was like an empty balloon. The ice he felt gathering between his toes in his wool socks turned numb. Hank began counting his inhales through his exhales in his mind. Deep beyond the fog, he heard the bumping and scraping of the trees. Behind a chorus of jays, nutcrackers, and crows. Digging out a spot to sit from the snow, he made the ground below even. He reached for the bipod in his bag to set his rifle. His ears perked having been fooled by the sounds of the forest below, a hyper focus beset his mind. 

The next peeling of fog evaporated into the air like his frozen breath. The chorus from the birds cut to pure silence. A real silence that only those of us who know the true wilderness are familiar with. The slightest pebbles drop would echo through the draw. Hank’s body went weightless, still counting his breath. His mind went blank, overwhelmed with the serenity of the scene, and his spine spiked up like a shocked kitten. Hank could finally peek at the edge of the watering hole closest to him. A violent screech erupted across the clearing, echoing two more times. Hank’s eyes tightened and pulled the butt of his rifle to his shoulder. He noted one of the echoes seemed to be further away, maybe on the next ridgeline.

The ice and the snow began to sparkle like diamonds as Hank could suddenly feel a new heat beaming down upon the layers upon his back. But he sat perfectly still, clutching the rifle. Shadows from the aspens and pines emerged in front of him and the fog was turning into more of a steam. He put his eyes to his scope in hopes he could find some sign of movement.

The fog was lifting. Scope focused on the watering hole with his left eye, and his right eye remained open, scanning the surroundings. The ice crunched. He could just begin to make out the other bank of the hole. Then he could see two massive forward-facing branches as if they were leaping out from the water and sweeping up and backwards. There he found the spot of gold in the backdrop of what he now knew to be antlers. The fog was steaming away into the breeze, and he could begin to see the darker brown head. The base of the antlers was the size of a can of beans. And now Hank began to count the points. Brows, 2. The bez 3. The trey. The rising steam still hid the tips of the sweeping backward antlers of this young soon to be monster of a bull. 

His mind rattled, the stock of his gun stood firm. He quickly regained control over his breath. The pit of his stomach had dropped. The bull’s head lifted, revealing his deep and long chest brisket. The steam from behind dissipated two more disproportionately long 4th dagger points on each side, the left side already spurring a 5th. His heart thumped through his chest, and his stomach begged with its prolonged hunger. Hank elongated each breath, anchoring the balance of his body. His head rose to the left, revealing the thick brick-house legs and 4th dagger being extremely elongated. Hank put his finger to his trigger and activated the first stage of the two-stage trigger function. A perfect, beautiful 5x4 any hunter would admire for the rest of his days. 

He took his last deep breath in, and all of the fog had vanished into the air. His right eye caught the golden and orange aspens blending with the greens from the pines blurring into a Mozart-like painting. His left through the scope caught the sparkling clear water reflecting the reds of the sunrise, and a flake of snow fell from the pine above onto the back of his neck. An eternity passed, but it hadn’t yet been a second. His grandpa’s voice echoed once more, “Sometimes the magic of it all takes hold. And the best shot a hunter can take is the one he withholds.” Hank dropped his finger from the trigger and let out a lifetime in one long breath. 

Hank stayed focused on the bull through the means of his scope, observing every motion. The elk slowly plopped through the snow back into the glowing aspens before trotting away deep into the dark timber. His breath grew heavier, and he stared at the game trail from the trees with the Colorado sun now rising above the ridgelines. Hank released the cartridge, catching it in his hand, dropping the magazine and reloaded it. He lay back in the snow and looked up to the skies above.