More Than One Way to Die, part IV Orphan Moose

I realize this is not a very glamorous subject to write or read about but animals rescued from the wild are not all fairy-tale features. Those individuals having the revered interest and opportunity to take part in saving lives deserve to be told the whole story. And sadly, this is one of those chapters.

.....Baby had been grooming herself excessively. I never knew moose were such clean creatures. She is a veritable yoga guru elongating her neck to stroke bony shoulders with a thick muscled tongue that darts in and out with snake-like precision. Hind legs extend forward with flexibility of a gymnast to appease her forehead. I watched and wondered at this sprucing up ritual. Once I observed her curl velvety lips back to open passage for teeth and savagely rip out a tuft of brittle hair from her whithers. I thought this odd and jotted a note in my journal as a sign of orphan oddities. Curiosity compelled me to research this obsessive behavior. Inscesent grooming could be a comfort practice I imagined. She was without the reassurance of an adult and needed consolation
......How wrong surface impressions can be. Another barbaric act of nature had reared its hideous head. Baby was covered with reddish-gray blobs of blood-sucking ticks over one-fourth of her tiny body. We had no way of telling how many lay burrowed beneath the hide but there were an observable 30-50 exposed on patches of bare skin. Baby's concentrated grooming tactics were on-going labors to purge these blood-sucking demons from her flesh. A species called Dermacentor Albipictus or winter Ticks. *

.....Winter ticks kill. They cause blood loss, itching, inflammation and skin ulcerations. Ticks winter over in moose as well as deer and elk. Animals become infested in late summer to early autumn when they contact lumps of tick larvae on tips of vegetation.* By November ticks molt to nymphs and in January begin feeding. They peak in mid-February and molt into adults.* (Mid-February was when we first noticed the largest ones on her rump.) Numbers peak in late March through April and all drop off by mid-May.* The moose can live tick free until late summer when the cycle starts over again.* Winter ticks however are most prevalent south of 60 degrees latitude.* When winters are as horrid as the ones we have been battling, food is meager and vital protective fur drops off due to tick infestation. Malnutrition and exposure are the bold indisputable signatures found on their death certificates.

...What would be our course of action given this new information? Only what is within our power; extra food, more attention and greater love. We boosted Baby's intake of deer feed adding cracked corn. Coincidence or cure we aren't sure, but within a week we started finding dead ticks in the driveway, on the ground around her bed and on our back porch some as large as grapes. The land leeches were falling off as Baby sustained her grooming routine with vengeance. Innovation sparked new ways to rid her body of these hostile pests. She utilized the hoods of our vehicles by rubbing her chest and cheeks insatiably back and forth across the fenders and grills crushing ticks to death. I want to believe the warmth from those engines also allowed her a brief respite from the agony. All though these types of ticks do not prefer human hosts * it is a constant sanitation effort around our abode. But how reassuring to see gentle tufts of hair growing back over the ravaged skin.

.....I know without a doubt had we not intervened in the salvation of this immature moose we all would have discovered there is more than one way to die out here. I trust that with our continued efforts Baby will live to create the next generation.

"Tough Enough" Chapter 1 in the Kokanee Saga

.....I discovered backpacking this summer. I discovered it only rains on the weekends I want to pack. I discovered seven and a half poinds of trail mix is not necessary for wilderness survival, and I discovered you don't have to be tough to challenge a glacier, just tough enough.

.....A long stone's throw north of Slocum, Canada lay Enterprise Creek Trail, "A mere 13.5 kilometers to the base of Kokanee Glacier," my trusted mate Marti, declared. The sharp Christmas tree smell shocked me into realization. Here I was tripping on the edge of another genesis. I hoisted 35 pounds of room and board onto my back and gazed earnestly down the trail. I hadn't a clue how far a kilometer was, a scant hop and a whistle from the tone of Marti's unhurried voice. I figured I was good for thirteen hops and at least one whistle. I blindly shadowed my backcountry partner (soon to be husband) up the trail letting the cool summer breeze have its way with my senses. Soaring sweet cedars and herringbone skies garnished my photographer's plate. However, this captivating revelation was the end of my backpacking reverie.

.....At kilometer 1.0 the trail narrowed to a spaghetti thin, root encrusted sliver. The hiking boots I had judiciously purchased began to pinch at kilometer 1.5. My ill-fitting pack began to sag at kilometer 1.7. My shoulders tightened and screamed for mercy at kilometer 3.2; only two miles into my dream-come-true Canadian quest. But I wasn't about to cry uncle. I would bite the bullet, at least until I had to use it to shoot myself. I trudged upward and onward vowing to conquer the pain. After all, if I wanted to be a renowned nature photographer I must first suffer as any famous artist should. So I concentrated on suffering. I needed to master the art quickly before I died that night. My judicious hero knowing my innermost principles and passsions helped me to suffer as well.

.....At kilometer 5.4 a sizable tree branch had fallen across the trail. Embraced on one side by a sheer cliff and on the other by a steep drop-off the trail left us two choices; over or under. My pack having become a giant quivering blob of gelatin did not allow for a milligram of dexterity or balance so under was clearly out of the question. And my five foot six inch frame with limited leg length, did not allow for step-over access. Of course Marti with lengthy apendages of pure muscle could have tramped over the obstacle without a problem, but being my personal Sir Galahad, he lifted the limb overhead allowing me easy passage. Unfortunately my passage took a bit longer to complete than he had muscles to endure. The hefty branch came crashing down sweeping me over the edge with no more effort than blowing dust bunnies from beneath the couch. My head snapped back sending a jolt of electrifying pain down my spine.

....."Are you okay down there? Do you need help back up? Marti yelled down undeterred.

.....Leaving out the ##%** I replied, "Just dandy." The sarcasm escaped him completely.
I surveyed my predicament without moving, wondering how many misery points I had just earned. The backpack I had been cursing this entire trip had blessedly snagged on a downed rotting cedar and halted my ride to the bottom of the ravine. Unscathed and unsure I rolled to my side and hand over knee I crawled back onto the trail. That maneuver would soon become my trademark.

.....Tanal Lake, just ahead, was the half way mark and base camp. With an hour of cool daylight remaining we ignored the milky clouds that had turned from substantial to serious. We pitched our tent, grabbed a bite of trail mix and hiked around the sultry lake. Kokanee Glacier loomed ominous in the distance and I wanted my lion's share of images. The pyramid of ice and snow declared itself master over hot August days. It was a trophy to altitude and atitude. I lost twenty pain points as I netted its authority in my 35mm sights. Somehow I knew I'd gain them back before Monday.

.....About 8 p.m. the rain began making earnest ringlets across the glassy water. We hastily gulped reconstituted Chickan-a-la-king and snuggled in for the night. Lightening flashed, etching names of departed hikers in the dirty sky; I was bound and determined not to be one of them. Pain points like black sheep hurdled through my restless slumber.

.....Eight dreary hours later morning decided she could hold out no longer, neither could my bladder. Slapping on my down jacket and plastic poncho I bolted for the makeshift latrine, a semi dry enclosure in a downpour of raindrops the size of cheeseballs.

....."Time to git," shouted Marti. "We need off this hill before it slides out from under us. Your pack is outside the door."

.....I groaned in dismay. My pack had become a nightmare: too much trail mix, and too many clothes drenched and weighing more than my own body weight. Maybe I would dump the sleeping bag. Marmots coul use it to nest in. Do marmots nest? If I made it out of here I was never backpacing again, but I would read about marmots to see if they had put my bag to good use. "Pack it in ...Pack it out." the outdoorsman's creed taunted my subconscious. I kept the bag. "Body please forgive me I knew not what I was getting us into." But,hallelujah we were on our way down. Down being the definitive commandment, gravity being the savior of my soul, my feet and my back. All I had to do now was walk, put one sodden foot in front of the other: left ... right ... left, this wasn't so tough.

"Hey, what's that sound?" I screamed to Marti above a maelstrom that launced itself in front of us.
"I think that little creek we crossed rose yesterday a bit during the night."

.....To be honest, it had risen only four inches; four inches over a twenty-foot matchstick that lay between sanity and civilization. There were four inches of full-steam-ahead-knock-you-on-your-butt surging locomotion. However, those four inches over the log didn't really scare me that much, it was the grand canyon drop to the gushing hell below that immobilized my cardiovascular system. If the torrential rains hadn't all ready drenched me to the bone, I would have felt my sweat glands drowing in their own secretions. I forced my eyes from the watery terror.

....."How did you get over there?" I shrieked realizing Marti had blithely tiptoed his way across the matchstick leaving me alone on the forbidden side of hell.
....."I walked, do you want me to come back and get your pack?"

.....It was a noble gesture, but I was not about to be defeated and was not about to ask my beloved to risk that slippery stick again. I dropped to my knees and began the death-defying crawl. Huge mistake. Tidal waves hammered my body, blades of frigid water tore flesh from my fingers; the insides of my nostrils were blocked. I was gasping for air and the pulverizing water sealed my eyes shut. Inch by horrifying inch I slithered across that slimy stick. Mud never felt so good. I flopped over, my saturated pack pinning me to the soggy earth. "Go ahead, say what you're thinking. " I mumbled helplessly. "I'm not the rugged type you thought."

.....Marti mused for a moment, "No your're not, but your'e tough enough for me." He hoisted pack and female into an upright position, adjusted the pack and kissed the girl. We trekked on. Kokanee Glacier would have to wait for another day. I counted misery points in my head as I ambled on and couldn't find a single one. I counted pride points and I'm pretty sure there were at least three.

Chapter 2: Surviving the Aftermath