Falling In A Hole - Smarter Than A Coon

8 October 2007

Falling In A Hole - Smarter Than A Coon

Posted by Darrell under: Elk; Colorado; Hunting Stories .

On day 6 of my recent Colorado archery elk hunt, I fell into a hole - literally. I was hunting by myself working my way down into a really knarly canyon. I had dropped down from the top about 1,000 feet and was working my way across the side of this mountain. As I was hiking along through the aspens I came to an opening. It looked like a chute that went all the way down the mountain to the canyon bottom and was completely bare of any ’standing’ trees. It looked to be less than a 1/4 of a mile wide and I could see aspens and black timber on the other side.

More importantly, there were elk singing just on the other side of this small obstacle. It probably doesn’t sound like an obstacle since it doesn’t even have trees, right? Well, let me assure you it was an obstacle. It didn’t have ’standing’ trees, but there were literally thousands of trees on the ground. I’m not sure what had happened but something had blown over all the trees in this entire chute. It was crazy looking. The trees were stacked up like pick up sticks and to make matters worse there was vegetation (thick, thick vegetation) growing up between all the downed trees.

So, instead of turning around like a halway sane person would, I decided to carefully work my way across this mess. Afterall, there were elk on the other side. I thought that surely I would stumble into a nice game trail that I could follow across.

When you can’t find game trails, it should tell you something! The only way to work across this tangle of horizontal trees was to walk across the trees themselves. In places they were just 3 or 4 feet above the ground. In others (I quickly realized) the trees would be 10-20 feet off the ground! How is this possible, you might wonder?

This chute was full of ditches and the trees had fallen across the ditches at every possible angle and then more trees had fallen across the first trees until it was just a giant tangle of trees. In many places you couldn’t tell how deep it was under you because the vegetation had grown up close to tree level.

Ok, you now have the idea. But, I did forget to mention that some of these logs were really slick and others were loose - they’d roll and slide. So there I am, walking across a good size tree when it decides to start sliding and down I go - into a deep hole.

When I hit the bottom, after whacking several trees on the way down, I realized that I was in trouble. Other than my pride, a sore head, and some sore limbs, I was OK. Except the fact that I was a good 12 feet down and couldn’t see anything but daylight way above me.

A smart person, in this situation, would take a few moments and evaluate the situation. I’m not one of those people. I immediately began trying to climb out. I couldn’t do it. I fell, over and over again, back into my original resting place. It took me about an hour to realize why I couldn’t manage to climb out.

As a kid, my grandpa would tell me stories about catching raccoons. You could put something that a coon would want into a bottle with a small neck and the coon would force his hand in for it. He’d wrap his hand around that item and wouldn’t let go - even though it meant he couldn’t pull his hand out of the bottle. As long as that bottle was securely attached to something - you’d catch yourself a coon.

So, after an hour or so, I realized that I was having the same problem. I had a rather large 40lb backpack on and a bulky bow in hand. I was trying to climb out of that hole with both of these items in tow. If I’d stopped and thought about my situation I probably would have realized this immediately. With my bow and backpack, I just didn’t fit.

After removing my backpack and tying it to a rope and doing the same with my bow I was able, with much effort, to climb up and out of the hole which I affectionately refer to as hell. Then I pulled my stuff up after me. I was trully happy to be alive. I didn’t want to die in that hole as I don’t think anyone would have EVER found me.

The upside to this entire story is that even though I’m obviously not too smart - I am smarter than a coon - barely.

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