Hypothermia in the hills

[timmy]

My little story is about an elk hunt (unsuccessful) in Southwestern Montana, USA.

My hunting buddy and I decided to go hunting for elk in an area that I was familiar with. My Wife and I had worked with youth and taken them to a remote place in Southwestern Montana called Elkhorn Hot Springs. Since this name is not uncommon out West and it may be difficult for you to locate on a map, this Elkhorn is near the Montana town of Polaris.

Polaris is a most interesting metropolis, consisting of a two story log cabin that serves as a store, post office, and home, and the Polaris Bar. These are the only two buildings in the town, which serves are rural population of ranchers. The bar is somewhat noteworthy in that it has no water. Drinks are served in disposable plastic cups. The restroom facilities are located outside: A whitewashed wooden outhouse for the ladies and a dead cottonwood tree stump for gentlemen. Once, the county health authorities attempted to close the Bar down due to health code violations, and about half of the county (the largest in Montana) turned out to protest. The Bar remained in business.

About 15 miles up the road is Elkhorn Hot Springs. It is a very old spa with a hot water springs serving several hot pools of different temperatures. A lodge and a number of rustic cabins provides accommodations at a reasonable rate, and this is where we set up our base. The cabins are heated by wood stoves, but the cracks in the wall require warm sleeping bags. Early in the morning, we would get up to drive up the hill to Harrison Park, which is about 7200' in elevation (IIRC). Here's a link to a pic if you are interested: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/618915

After a number of years, I had finally been able to acquire a full set of woolen hunting clothes, which are much quieter when going thru the woods than the more common synthetic materials. My partner and I split up, each taking a different draw to hunt, and in the course of this I came to a small brook.

To digress for a moment, I should mention that during this time, this area was pretty cold. Temperatures at night up in Harrison Park could drop into the range of -57* C. The days are bright and sunny and not nearly so bitter, but usually well below zero also.

Anyway, I came up to this brook and, rather than trying to jump across the ~ 1 foot or so wide brook, decided to use a small piece of wood laying across it. Of course, it rolled me in and my foot went to the bottom of the brook. The thing about these little channels is that they can be surprisingly deep. This one was up to my knee.

I pulled my foot out right away, and at least I didn't fall over, but my leg was soaked. Given the very low temperature and my great distance from the truck or anything like a shelter, I immediately thought of hypothermia. My leg was bitterly cold. I went up a south-facing hillside and found that the temperature sun was not quite so bad. I took off my heavy woolen bib overalls and wrung what seemed like a couple of liters of water out of the wet leg, and hung the overalls up in a tree in the sun. I had on long underwear so, other than the one wet leg, I was OK there. Since I always wore two pairs of socks, I could remove one sock from my dry foot and was OK there.

In the dry high altitude, it took my bibs about 1/2 hour to dry out, during which time I "sunbathed" in my long underwear bottoms. Then, I was on my way.


That hunt proved to be quite an interesting little trip. I took my buddy on some side trips on the way home, including the ghost town of Coolidge and the remains of the huge Elkhorn Mine, built along with the last narrow gauge railway to be laid down in the USA. Here are a couple of links with pics and little historical summaries:

http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/mt/coolidge.html
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/mt-coolidge.html

On the first link, the 4th picture down is of what the mine mill looked like some years after I had been there, when it was more complete. The small size of the picture doesn't give any idea of how huge this mill was.

Another experience we had was a visit from a giant B-52 bomber. In those days, the B-52s were stationed at Ellsworth AFB near Rapid City, South Dakota. They would fly along the Montana - Wyoming border west, into Southwestern Montana, south through Idaho, and then back to South Dakota. Along the way, they had laser practice bombing ranges set up -- they didn't drop anything, but ran practice missions.

Anyway, we had split up that day and my partner had gone over the ridge to the next draw. in the afternoon, I heard a tremendous roaring that grew and grew in volume. I didn't know that the B-52s practiced in the area at the time, but guessed that it could only be one -- nothing else could make that much noise. I kept watching for the top of the tail fin to rise above the top of the ridge. If you have ever been up close to a B-52, you know that the vertical fin is very tall -- like a tall building. The fin, however, never appeared.

That evening, when my hunting buddy and I rendezvoused, I asked him about it right away and he told how this B-52 flew very low down the valley he was in and right over his head! How I wished that I'd have taken the long walk that morning!

And the elk? Well, in Montana, the old answer to the question of "Where's all the elk?" is, "Elk are where you find 'em." And on that trip, we didn't.

[nagarifle]

thanks timmy for the very interesting story, as they say you get some you loose some.
Big sky country is sure superb place to look around. in the summer thats the best place to be. glad that everything turned out ok, even for the elk who did not get in your sight pic.

any more little stories?

[timmy]

Nagarifle: thanks, it was a fun time! These Montana stories are over 20 years old and when something happens to jog my memory, I recall them better. I do have more and will try to recall them. In those days, the rifles I used to hunt with were:

721 Remington, 300 H&H
M95 Winchester lever, .30-40 Krag
.30-40 Krag that was sporterized with a DCM m03 Springfield barrel
M94 Swedish Mauser carbine, 6.5x55
M1895 Marlin .45-70
Ruger #1, 270 WCF.

Of all this, the only one I still have is the Ruger #1. By the time I left, I pulled the 4x Leupold from it and mounted a 12x AO Weaver and was starting to use it for varmint hunting (rockchucks).

The M1895 Marlin was given to my older son, who still has it.

The rest are gone to who-knows-where. I was young in those days and didn't realize that the only direction a gun should go is IN to a collection, never out. Of all of them, I miss the Krag the most. I loved that smooth action. However, the one I had seemed to have a bit of a headspace problem. And now, I would need a scope on it for serious hunting.

My biggest passion, other than being at the rifle range, was to shoot varmints in out of the way places with my Marlin M39 .22. I have some stories about that and maybe that's where I should start next. Those were usually all day trips. I never finished off a "brick" (500 rounds) of .22s in a day, but I usually was over 400 rounds, not including some handgun shooting in .38 Spl, .45 ACP, and .45 Colt. I need to dig up some pictures for that.

[nagarifle]

hi Timmy
do send more stories, i was in the big sky country many years ago and still have fun memories.

did you do hunting with handguns? thats one i never tried as damm difficult to take down a elk etc unless close range.

any thing we can do to jog your memory?

[penpusher]

Timmy,

Nice write up.Interesting links as well.

[dev]

Nice to read Timmy, please keep them coming.

Dev

[Olly]

Nice and interesting write-up.... keep it up !!

[mundaire]

Another great read Timmy! Look forward to more

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[timmy]

Gentlemen: Thank you all so much for your kind words. They are very much appreciated, especially at this time. My Bride has suffered from some health problems lately, but now is doing much better, for which I'm very thankful.

I hope to be able to refocus on getting a story or two together and have recently recalled another topic to discuss.

[mundaire]

Timmy, sorry to hear about your wife's health - wish her a speedy & complete recovery!
Cheers!
Abhijeet

[penpusher]

Gentlemen: Thank you all so much for your kind words. They are very much appreciated, especially at this time. My Bride has suffered from some health problems lately, but now is doing much better, for which I'm very thankful.

Sorry to hear that.Wishing her a speedy recovery.

[Sakobav]

timmy

Nice one another great story and wishing all the best to your wife.

The big sky country is an amazing place.

That place has lot of great geological places. Another one was craters of the moon lava kind of field
Check the slide show in the link below
http://www.nps.gov/crmo/photosmultimedia/index.htm

This place is few miles west of Idaho falls next to the Idaho Nuclear facility one of the biggest in the country. Its a huge area 2000 odd sq kms, in here they used to and still test most of the reactors.

Best