Prep Time

Cleaning out the barrels with a tin of gun oil that's older than I am sitting on my coffee table.  How many missions has this handed down tin relic helped in prepping?  How many tiny drops have secured the confidence and actions of my brother, father, and our friends?  It doesn't take much, it's the good stuff.  Boxing up the empties from last time, still lingering in the pockets of thick canvas along with puffs of down and a top knot.  The dog likes the top knot.  It goes on her nose while she's sleeping.
Maps spread, the Google Machine doing the satellite checking.  New grounds.  Unproven, but in those rendered images lay the hope of this old friend crew.  The promising signs of good chukar sticking out to each of us: cheat grass, rocky ridges, and some sage.
Filling the water jugs at the last minute so they don't freeze so quickly.  Grabbing wood from the neighbor's oak he dropped in the fall.  He may or may not be pleased about this, depends on if he's got a wood stove and knows how to use it.  Booze money thrown into the pot.  Dogs loaded up, attempts are made to feed them well but they're too excited to eat.  One stop at the last supermarket before the desert melts from Reno.  Sturdy smiles hidden on the inside, we're damn lucky for this.

Sometimes..

 Sometimes you descend to the feet of the mountains you just busted hump upon for the better part of the Sun's Fun Run and you have nothing to show for it, save a few crushed Pabst Light cans where the birds should be.  Then the dog gets stoked, but not birdy, it gets Wabbity.  You and your hunting pal share an agreeing glance and start busting brush on the valley floor.  "It's for the dog, she needs some gratification after a day like today.." is what we'll both spout in different forms over the fire, knowing damn well we needed ours.  In Nevada, you can shoot jackrabbits all day long.  But one is enough, and after deciding a rabbit crossing our bitter paths at that restless hour was anything but lucky, we left it's feet for the coyotes.

 Sometimes your dog is knocking it out of the fucking park.  She's on every bird, she's not losing her cool and running them out of deer rifle range.  You just sit back, keep reloading, and she keeps handing the birds to you.  It doesn't seem fair.  It doesn't seem legal.  It's art.  She loves it, every second of it.  The ecstasy on her face is more pure and intense than any of us two leggers will ever know, will ever see again.  This is what she was bred for, what she was trained for, what her true purpose is.  If only we could find that combination of fate and predestined purpose more often in our race, the assholes would go extinct and the entire world would be elevated to a population of Jordans, Woods, Shaun Whites, and Cormac McCarthys.  These dogs are living precision machines, and we can only marvel at them and what they do.  We can only feel lucky for having a relationship with such intense, passionate beasts.

 

Sometimes at camp you find yourself in some surprising and almost unseasonal weather.  December my ass, who needs a tent?  The whiskey lubes up the tales and the chili cans get rotated out to cool.  The stars shine intensely in the center of nowhere, opening the truck door and dome light blindness sobers the magic for an instant.  The day was typical chukar, a few thousand hard fought vertical feet bring us to post-chili-dog-coma syndrome and the whiskey is starting to go mute.  Bed rolls produced and it's a summer affair - Warm, no tent to hide the stars, and dry.  An hour later we were too stunned to set up our tents when the monsoon arrived, so we scrambled to the unexplored mine shaft 100 yards below the truck.  It was wide enough to sleep shoulder to shoulder with our heads at the entrance; the interior being occupied by several large fecal producing rodents and the entrance being the most level, but not quite level.  The dog jumping off of us every 5 minutes to get the rodents, to keep us awake.  Rain stops, I leave Jesse in the cave and try my luck outside.  Finally start to doze off.  Monsoon returns, it was just the eye sucka!! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!  Pissed.  Tired.  Still not setting up my tent.  Passenger seat of the truck with Moby Dick for entertainment and Jimmy Breeze to knock the sleep in to me.  The outcome was predictable: I watched the sun come up and nearly polished a bottle of Beam and read about 100 pages of outdated whaling.  

Sometimes it's always worth it.

Boarderlands

 

 South side of the mountain was blasted dry, save for the drifts that like to hide under the slipstream of bushes capable of holding their shape in such places.  The sign was pressed on those high altitude icebergs, their scant puzzle pieces all pointing to the top of the mountain.  The dogs knew it.  Tails whirling and my imagination seeing a helicopter dog take flight caught me off guard when John's dog busted two mounties that broke to my far left and were out of range before I could swear.  It was John's dog and side, why the hell didn't he get a shot off?  They were mounties anyway, and we wanted some chukar first.  I think that the mounties are a hell of a lot harder to hunt, which should equate to fun for those of us in the business of what I imagine outsiders to call "Big investment, Small gain" outdoor activities, but they don't have the flavor and size.  And Chukar is a far stranger word than Quail.  CHUKAR.  We busted the rocks and snowy peak until we left empty handed.  Fool's Gold sign in every drift, perhaps put there by wizards to keep us pumped all day.  Getting skunked hunting isn't getting skunked, it's going for a hike with your best friend, and your hunting buddy.

Mullet to Gullet

Throwing most birds in the freezer for the big Mexican Wild Dirty Bird Fest.  But this one had to simmer in garlic and red wine with some pepper.

Yeah

I use trapped air techno on a switch rod.  The ladies like the extra reach, and some of the fellas too.  Cry blaspheme! 

Of rockstars and dirtnaps.

Perhaps it's better to have your video camera in yer hand than your rod these days, especially if you're into celebrity sex tapes and fishing.  Saw some dudes floating through d-town Reno the other day with both, hollering like it was the 2nd Coming and casting to cast only if they were looking through the viewfinder first.
Makes me a bit sad.
The rockstar mentality killed off snowboarding for me, nothing personal or righteous in the realm of the self, but wholly from the fact that the faith of such a lifestyle was placed on cred and style and not for the reason you started hiking up the hill in Sorel's with icey fingers to hit a shitty kicker you built with your buddies.

Sure I like to shoot some video and take shots of the hogs I get lucky enough to hold, but it's not the reason I stay up tying flies and get 4 hours of sleep and jump in with the boys early on hung-around as Doc Holliday.

I know that there are guys who've been around this longer than I've been alive, and I'm sure they've got opinions too.  I'm not going to say I'm trendy because I'm an alcoholic outdoorsman that enjoys the self-wrought struggle I bring to my table that so many before me that I've admired have done.
I'm not exempt from these claims, nor am I dependent upon them.

There's a fickle pencil stroke between choice and circumstance, and absolution can only come from one of these.

 Elevating your passion into an egocentric frame grants the theft of your fire, and nobody is gonna save it except for you and your breath.

Shoot your videos, make your money shots, but remember why you do the things you do.

Bear Scouting

Stank Guy

Coach and Mandela Joe and I had a romp up and down Yuba pass on the dirt machines.  Fishing was out because Hurricane Hugo's ghost child decided to haunt the valley below and give us the rad blow back hair on the climb.

665 Newtons per fathom

Bears walk on the moon, 1942

Spooked a mama and her cub and on their way up the steeps she broke a huge dead-fall like it was Nancy Kerrigan's knee.

Make a dirt rainbow.

You really missed out, shoulda been here yesterday.

Waitin' for the Wind.

Recycled some cogs, shifter cables, a wheel, some chains, and a horse.
Welcome to the 501 House.

Shred of Ages

Got the new bitch today. She screams like it's murder every time, but I still keep relaxed, pumping away.  She's nimble as a gazelle.  But I do need to soften it up a bit in the front. Put some padding in there for my hands, maybe a new ass too. FIZIK? Fuck that. Went and shredded some Peavine singletrack for a few hours, went down, laughed, climbed, almost puked, bombed past some padded (fat) DH wussies,

crashed, jumped, sprinted home with a smile.
I love the dirt and getting dirty more than Madonna in "A League of Their Own".

SLIDE DEVIL WOMAN!  There's no crying in baseball.
Let's. Go.

Bob Roll is the Man.

I'm back. Out of a long period of drinking too much, dabbling too much, not doing anything productive outside failing at my dream trip. I've finally pulled my head out, I'm getting back in shape, getting mentally stronger and not stranger, I'm feeling good, taking control again, and ready to kick some ass. To better sum it up, From the opening page of the SSWC 2009 magazine (BEST RACE EVVVVVVERRRR, Single Speed Worlds Durango will NEVER be topped!) Ladies and Gents, I give you Bob Roll.

"Leather Jackets and Ghetto Blasters"

Knowledge is not always Power,
Sometimes knowledge is pain
Reconciliation with a love that
can't happen/with a love for a
life that will never come
to pass is the day you lose,
Loss and abandonment is what
love and life give until the end
of our days.
I spent all my Tour de France money
on faithless women, leather jackets
and ghetto blasters - the rest
I just squandered.
But to love the squalor
is the key to the kingdom.
Although I wasted my money and
can no longer afford derailleurs,
I still love to ride - so it
will be single speeds until the day
I die.
BOBSTACK LIGHTNING