The Holy Dirty Revival

About damn time winter.  Back to Church, singing the praises of the Holy Dirt Revival.

Jebus, I missed you guys - singletrack, dusty burning lungs, mud caked water bottle mouth pieces, brush thrashed shins, ghostly knuckles, bloody limbs, broken parts, hyper-focus animalistic survival mode at high speed down the rock gardens.

 It's the most tired you'll ever see a hunting dog.  Chasing you feverishly on descents, running down all the quail in the brush ahead of you as you climb.  A good dog always knows just what to do, like late season Seal Slides.

Nothing like a flat in an ultra creepy and secluded spot to speculate the intentions of the groups hidden serial murderer.

It's good to be out sweating, bleeding, and burning in the Dirty Cathedral.

When all things blow..

Things get weird.  Muddy turbines and whirlpools spinning above the base of willows at rivers edge.  Dust Bowl Revival.  Bloody Mary's.  Bass still frozen.  Carp water brown. Cheladas.

Scatterguns.  Unlucky rabbit down range.  Stuffed Animals.  Dried up old unlucky bunny.  Decimation of old cop target.

Making the best of things = Good day with your best friend.

Carp slough garbage wiper.

The Offseason

Hiking with the dog and empty handed.  Don't even want to see a bird.  Withdrawals.
I wish fishing still had seasons.  Guess that's why I love creeks in California so much.
The offseason is the only imposed form of self control that I can abide.
Second Saturday of October.
7 months is a long time.

Big Rock Candy Mountain 2011 Edition

Ever been at the point your fridge looks like your conscience and your wallet at the same time?  The following tips are approved by the Big Rock Candy Mountain 2011 Committee.

Step 1) Dig out that stuff sack with all your unused bike travel food from the past year.  Pick out an awesome one you were saving for magical occasions like this. Cook water on hot.

Step 2)  Add one freezer burned chukar breast. 

Step 3) Substitute water for beer, ketchup (catsup) and rooster power for veggies.

Step 4) Enjoy!

Don't take this too seriously.

Short sleeve shirts, January, and chukar don't seem to fit together.  It seems like one of those dreams you have that even deep in slumber you know it's not quite right.  Azure sky, mud and snow at about 50/50, good friends, better dogs, and the dose of reality:  Next to no birds. 

Perfect conditions for the average human activity usually mean the opposite to the game we pursue.  You don't see birds sunning themselves midday on top of cliffs, strutting their stuff for the ladies and saying "Goddam Roy!  What a beee-u-ti-ful day, eh?"  At least not during scattergun season.  Fishing on sunny days in the winter can provide some bent rods, but that's because fish in ice choked waters have a bit more appreciation for the sun than even we do.  But you don't take these things to mind when you slap those boots on and take to the field.  Optimism is a cheap, sexy whore.  Realism is about the chase, climbing the mountain with an open mind and a light heart, because it's worth it.  Don't take this seriously.  We're running around with shotguns on steep and rocky mountain slopes where we don't belong, looking for a fucking bird that's only gifts are surviving here because it is exactly where it belongs.

Sometimes you get lucky, dumb lucky.  And sometimes meeting everyone back at the trucks with the only pair of stiff legs poking out of your game bag with the best poker face you can pull is worth every muddy, sliding step.

Excuse the poor camera jerk shadow.

Tournado

Muddy Buddy

I get that itch sometimes to go on a long, tortuous bike ride for no damn reason other than I need to kick the shit out of myself.  To wake from the cloudy sleep and comforts that afford my very few luxuries any weight.  On Thursday I was at work for about two hours, and two things happened. 1) There really wasn't a whole lot to keep me busy.  2) I had a wild hair up there and burning the demons out with a ride into a warmish winter storm front seemed like the best plan of action.  I hate getting restless and I'm lucky to have a "temp" job that allows me to bail when my ADHD hits 5th gear.  I may have just bought Top Ramen for the rest of the month, but it's well worth it.  I don't only get to exercise those demons I don't want around, I get to revive the ones that only bike tours, death rides and brutal races can birth.  There's a solitude in the saddle, a mental state that snaps on once you've settled in for 5 or more hours of steady cranking.  Masochism is a theme here.  There's a level of consciousness you can't explain to those who haven't pushed themselves to the breaking point.  We don't talk about it, but we see it in others.  It's definitely one of those things.

 

Sunbeams between the snow fronts.

I rode about 75 miles from Sparks to my parents home in California.  Some in the dirt, most on the pavement, a little in the snow.  I spent the last hour in the dark with out food or water in the tank, legs shaking as I pictured the cold beer my dad would hand me in a few minutes.  In the gloaming I could make out the landmarks dear to me as a kid, the sun's last lights dropping like a night light from the high clouds and fog.  My head was clear, my ass was handed to me.  I smiled with the dirt in my teeth and laughed and coughed all at once.  This is what it's all about.  That and riding up the lowest pass in the Sierra's with a Lucha Libre mask on.

Headwinds, I still damn thee.

Summer Mountain Quail Recon; or A Mid-Winter's Singletrack Pining

Best mountain quail scouting combo known to man, minus the rube playing with the spoke nipples and zip ties.  

In late August the high country singletrack comes into its own.  Most of the places we ride don't have guide book confirmation, so they aren't perma-muddied by 10,000 tires or the boots of le gapers.  The snow and mud have subsided so it's not a slog fest, and it's not so dusty you look like a character from Dune.  The beautiful blooms are just past their peak in the meadows and even if it's 90 degrees in the valley below, it's almost 70 way up here and it's gonna stay that way all day.  We play on the crest because it's like another planet, and a damn good one until deer season opens.  Oh yeah, and the trails we like to ride happen to be frequented by the most frustrating of upland birds - the mounty.  They love the head high manzanita, the raspy altitudes, and the thick trees that we wind through.  I see their tracks darting out of the springs during the midday water breaks, I see them run through the clear-cuts in the late evenings, and I count them in the mornings when Rosie busts them at the first ravine.  Rosie runs full speed, dangerously close to my front wheel, which has resulted in both of us cursing and bloodied in the past.  But with a smart dog it only takes once or twice to get with the program.  I consider these rides as multi-sport multi-tasking: 1- We are mountain biking, and it's fucking awesome. 2- We're getting in better shape for chukar season. 3- We're scouting for the second Saturday in September, when the scattergun season for mountys returns, as well as getting the dog's head back in the game.

We'll ride for miles and if we cross a covey, I stop and try to snap Rosie into hunting mode.  It doesn't take much as she's always in it, but her being young she doesn't always remember how to do things properly.  If we cross paths with the quail early on in the ride, she may break commands and go straight for them.  All I can do is watch them fly through the thick massive old growth with my lungs too empty to scream more than once or twice. 

I get the upper hand at the end of long rides.  She's a bit more wore down and tends to listen to the guy with the treats and water a little more intently. 

I know it's the peak of chukar and all right now, but the reason I digress to pre-season masturbation is because, like anything with a prime season, I miss riding balls out on high country singletrack.  I got the itch, and I can't scratch it for 6 more months.  At least I can still shoot the birds right now instead of just flushing 'em.  I guess the grass is always greener.

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.