A Little Closer To Heaven

There is a wilderness first aid class being offered in Harrison, AR for two weekends in December. Special emphasis will be put on scenarios that you will likely encounter in the woods. Cost is $85. It certifies you for a year in CPR and counts towards a Wilderness First Responder certification.

My wife and I are going to attend it because it is a definite necessity for the outdoor enthusiast. A lot of deaths in the wilderness could be prevented if only people had the slightest idea what they are doing and how to assess a situation. If you haven’t had a course like this. Find one near you. It can save your life.

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It’s looking like it’s going to be an awesome fall in the ozarks. The leavess are starting to change colors. There is a random red tree surrounded by green trees every few yards in the local woods.

Add on top of that the fact that we’ve finally been getting some good rains out here means that I may have something cool to do almost every weekend. With the leaves changing colors it will be perfect for me to take some hikes into the ozark mountains and get some great photo opportunities. When I’m not doing that, the Buffalo River is finally getting up and running again which means I’m about to do some canoeing.

Yesterday, I was going through some old pics of mine and found some pictures of my first time rafting in class IV water. They’re pretty funny and I’ll post them on here probably at the beginning of next week.

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Colordado is definitely a go next summer. We’ve worked out the dates and a rough itinerary. Not only that, but we’ve decided which 14ers we’re gonna conquer. We’re gonna climb Bierstadt, cross the sawtooth and go on over to Evans. Then, we’ll spend a couple of days recouping and bagging smaller peaks. After a few days we’re gonna take the obligatory trip to the top of Long’s Peak up the keyhole route. I’m very stoked because these will be the first 14er’s I’ve ever climbed. I’m just hoping I can get my VO2 max up to par to help me deal with the altitude. It sucks to be a flatlander.

After we get done with RMNP, we’re gonna head south to Great Sand Dunes National Park and hike into the dunes and spend a couple of nights in the backcountry. We’ll climb to the top of Star Dune (the highest in the park) the next day. Then, we’ll head back to the ozarks.

I have never been more pumped about a trip in my life. It’s gonna be a week and a half of adventure and dreams come true. My wife and I have a goal to visit and hike/paddle/climb in every national park in at least the lower 48 states. We are also trying to find a way to hike the John Muir trail in a few years. If any of you have any pointers for my first few 14ers or tips on the JMT or Great Sand Dunes I’d love to hear from you.

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Hopefully all of my faithful readers will forgive me for taking a week off from posting. My life was getting really crazy for a while and I needed a little time to sit back and collect my thoughts. Doing so has helped me greatly. I have a lot of new things to talk about and a fresh excitement about posting again.

That being said, I learned from the Great Outsmores that today is environmental action blog day (I think…). Here’s my environmental rant. I was watching the news the other day and apparently the Arkansas Conservation department is trying to decide what to do about the wild elk in Arkansas. Apparently, these guys have been giving a lot of property owners fits by destroying fences and eating crops. I understand their frustration. I mean I’d be upset if I was losing money too. However, their proposed solutions are even more irritating.

One group is trying to get a bill passed that would make it okay to shoot problem elk. Here’s the problem with that. It’s not one elk…they travel in enormous herds. You can’t kill all of them. Another group is asking that we fence an area off and make an elk zoo. Are you kidding me? People have payed taxes so that elk could be repopulated here in Arkansas so we can have them in the wild…not so we can go to a zoo. Besides, the revenue brought in to Arkansas by tourists and others who want to see the wild elk every year far outweighs the cost of a farm land. My proposal…give the farmers a tax break and possibly help them monetarily for the damages caused by elk.

Here’s what you can do. If you are in Arkansas, write your local congressman and tell them how much you appreciate the elk herd. Let them know that you don’t want to see them killed or put in a zoo. I’m not too worried about the fate of the elk because most people in Arkansas are behind the elk and are excited about their presence. They’re not going to allow anything to happen to them. There’s an uproar every time one is illegaly poached. I was just so upset about the proposed elk control that I could have thrown my tv.

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On the spur of the moment yesterday afternoon I threw out the idea of heading over to see the elk in all of their glory near the Buffalo National River. To my surprise, my wife got excited about it and we went. It was awesome. We arrived about 30 minutes before sundown and hiked out to a field that we have seen elk congregate many times before. When we first got to the area that we normally see elk there were two cows and a bull standing there and the bugles were SO LOUD! You could hear them well before you see them. The picture above is the bull that we first spotted in the field with the two females. He kept bugleing and bugleing and before you know it more and more females came out of the woods.

If seeing about 25 females were not enough, it got even more exciting. Eventually another bull came out of the woods and charged the one that we originally saw. For a while it looked like the two were going to fight but the original bull eventually backed down and the new guy in town chased him off. Here’s where it gets really good. When the bull was chased off he wandered over right next to us. He walked within 15-20 yards of us and stood there. He noticed us but did not look frightened or concerned that we were there at all (I know it was kind of dangerous, but he was so peaceful and not disturbed that we stuck around). He grazed in front of us and kept looking back and bugleing at the other elk. We stood there in amazement for a while and left well after dark. On our way out we saw another young bull with two females grazing at his side. This was a night Sara and I would remember for a very long time! Hopefully I’ll have even more adventures in the outdoors to talk about next week.

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