In Tow--In Terror

A few years back, my good friend Josh and I decided to head north of Sandpoint Idaho in pursuit of a nice Mule Deer Buck. The season up there runs from Nov 1st through the beginning of December, and there are some dandy bucks if you can get to them, or know where to find them. (I’ve seen pictures) In order to get to the spot we wanted to hunt we had to cross a well known creek called Lightning Creek. When we approached the flowing wonder that spanned about 30 yards across there was a pickup parked at the waters edge right in front of us. The water was about 4 feet deep in the center, but the pickup in front of us made it without any problems. We hesitated for a brief moment and then followed successfully pushing our way across through the ice cold water, laughing as the stream boiled over the hood of the Toyota. We thought we were pretty smart making it across the creek. Now we had a plethora of land available to hunt. Only the brave or stupid would attempt to cross the torrent stream and our competition would be stuck hunting on the other side. We had it made! We drove quite a few miles towards a lookout tower and then got into the snow. We had our first close call of the day when we broke through the hard snow almost getting stuck. Luckliy, we were able to back down the mountain for a mile and got turned around. We headed back down to some lower country and spent the day hiking around looking for Mr. Muley. However, Mr. Muley decided not to partake in our games and never made an appearance. Josh and I agreed we’d had enough of the rain and the cold, and with the long drive back to town looming we headed for home. Josh started up the Toyota and drove down to the water’s edge. I prepared the video camera so we’d have something exciting to show off later—it’s a guy thing. Little did we know that our uneventful day of hunting was about to become more of an event than we’d like. The Toyota grudgingly pushed the water out of the way as I videoed and whooped and hollered. As we bounced out of the creek, onto the shore, the truck died. The Toyota must have been thirsty because she gulped up gallons of that ice cold water as we crossed. The mountains were eerily silent. The look on Josh’s face was priceless. “****!!” (fill in the blank with your favorite four letter word). I laughed because it was one of those moments where you know you’re up “Lightning Creek with an elk turd for a paddle.” I suppose it was easier for me to laugh because I wasn’t the one making the truck payments. Luckily for us, some other hunters showed up and they were kind enough to tow us back Clark Fork. Now being towed isn’t so bad, but being towed by a couple of country boys on a mountain road, in the rain, brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘in-tow’. If we would have had a sign on the back of the Toyota it would have been in big flashing neon letters and read-- ‘IN TERROR’. Josh focused on the road, and I said a couple of prayers while we wisped down the mountain, me glancing periodically over the bank into the trees wondering how well they’d hold us, if we ended up going over. We made it back to Clark Fork, thanked the guys for the tow, and then started making phone calls. We hung around the local gas station for more than an hour until his cousin arrived to assist us. Once again we were being pulled down the road ‘in-terror’. We’d survived the mountain road, but now we were on the highway. We had no lights, no wipers, no power, and it was almost dark and still raining hard. Josh stared through the sheets of water on the windshield straining to see the taillights on his cousins pickup. There’s nothing quite like being towed 60 mph down the highway with no visibility, no power steering, and forget about the brakes. I once again went back to praying. It was quickly turning from a long day to a very long day. Anybody who spends time in the woods knows how tired one gets after getting up early, driving for hours, and then spending the day hunting. That’s exhausting on a good day. We were haggard, and jonesing for this day to end. The highlight came when Josh’s cousin stopped as we turned onto the gravel road. “You guys keep an eye out. There’s a lot of deer in these fields. If I see something I’ll stop and you guys can shoot it.” We laughed at the absurdity of the day and thought about how great of a story we could tell if we got a chance at a deer after all we’d been through. We finally made it to his cousin’s house, and waited patiently for his mother to drive up from Rathdrum to pick us up. On the drive home I couldn’t help but imagine what his mother wanted to say. “So why did you guys drive across the creek?” “Well ummm well. We saw another guy do it and thought we could too."“Oh I see. So if somebody jumped off a bridge would you? Well would you?” “Bridge? Did you say bridge?” Now that’s a heck of an idea.