Birchell Family: Bear Hunt Part 1

Jake drew out for the Book Cliff's fall pursuit and kill tag this year. We will be spending the majority of our weekends there for the next two months. It's a good thing we love it! Brilee has been so excited all week to go. We had a count down going, and Thursday morning she couldn't believe when we had to go to work before we could go. Then Thursday turned into a crazy busy day! By the time we were packed and ready I was exhausted. It was also two hours after the time I had HOPED TO BE THERE. I had put Bronson to bed, and figured Jake would agree with us just sleeping at our house and leaving in the morning. WRONG... He and Brilee were both adamant that we had said Thursday. So, off we went. Jake and the kids drove the dodge and pulled the camper and I had the joy of driving the dogs down. The dogs rigged every other second on the way down, and it kinda got me excited. There is just something about bear hunting that makes my heart happy. I was really dreading the drive, but the paving process is going awesome! It took half the time to get to our camp, and so I was thrilled with that. We still had the joy of setting up camp in the middle of the night while it was pouring rain. We got through, and Bronson never even woke up! Brilee on the other hand never went to sleep. She talked Jake's ear off the whole way down, and my ear off while Jake was getting camp ready. Jake and I switched them from the truck to camper, got Brilee to sleep, and were asleep instantly. The furnace ran pretty much all night, and before I knew it Jake was telling me bye. I don't know how he does it, because there was no way I could have woken up. A couple hours later Bronson was jabbering in his crib, and all the sudden I heard the generator turn on. I looked out the window to see Jake, and there were no dogs in the truck. He came in and said they were in a hole, and it was going to be "harsh". He knew three dogs were on a bear, and three dogs were trashing (chasing elk or deer). We got the kids ready and headed to the good dogs. The canyon the bear and dogs were in is named Lost Dog... coincidence? Lost Dog is also one canyon over from one of the LONGEST hikes of my life... 9 years ago we had dogs go off after a bear so Jake, Glade, and I had to walk in to them. I am pretty sure Jake said that day he would never turn dogs out right there again... Anyways, Jake geared up and told me he was pretty sure he would have cell service the whole way. The kids and I hung out and played in the beautiful outdoors. Bronson found lots of sticks which kept him entertained, and Brilee is just awesome. She just played and played. At one point she looked out the truck window and said, "Oh, our dog came back." I looked over and sure enough there was a hound. I asked Brilee if it was really ours (they all look alike), and she said, "Yes, it is Marley." I texted Jake to ask if we had a dog named Marley (I always thought it was a joke...) he said yes, and so I loaded her into the dog box. Jake sent us texts the whole way into the bear. We were so happy to see the bear pictures. After an hour he said he was hiking back out. Pretty soon he said he could hear Brilee singing, then he saw the truck. When he said he could see the truck we started hiking towards him. He was so happy to see us. It had been a HARD hike, and he needed water (he gave his only water bottle to the dogs). I was glad we were there. We got all the dogs watered up, Jake got his air, and we took off to find the other dogs. GPS collars are amazing. It took no time to find them. They had come back to the main road. We loaded them up and headed to camp. We fixed lunch, put the kids down for a nap, and fell asleep too. After we woke up it was still too hot to hunt so we just sat and watched the kids play. It was so relaxing and just what we wanted it to be. The kids were so happy, which makes for happy parents. Around 5 Jake cooked us some potatoes and chicken then we loaded everyone back up for an evening hunt. We drove around for awhile and the dogs would rig, but never very hard or long. Jake figured they must have been smelling the morning tracks and we didn't want to have the dogs go backwards. We decided to head back to camp. On our way back the dogs rigged hard, and long. Jake and Brilee got out and found the track. It was a decent bear, and Jake really debated letting them go. It was just about dark, and we were exhausted. We didn't think we had it in us to loose dogs so we ended up turning it down. We saw so many deer, elk, and turkeys. Bronson spent his whole time pointing and saying in an excited voice, "buck, buck, buck" He also would say turkey. He would point at each of us and say "Dada. Mama. SISSY!!!" I love how sissy gets him the most excited. Jake finally got to hear him meow like a cat, which is the cutest thing I have ever seen (his monkey is pretty cute too though!). When we pulled into our camp there were a bunch of deer there. For some reason it scared Bronson and so he was snuggly. I got him in the camper and he was asleep on my shoulder before I had even made his bottle. Brilee followed suit and so did we. Around 2 this morning I was startled awake to thunder and crazy rain. I laid there and watched the lighting storm, and didn't want the weekend to end. We had had so much fun just being down there together. Jake got up at sunrise and his friend had arrived (I like him hunting with friends way better than alone). They took off, and the kids woke up around 7. I fed them breakfast and then told Brilee we had to leave. She cried that she wanted to stay until I mentioned GMA, GPA, and Jackie were at Grammy's. Then she couldn't leave fast enough. We got home and cleaned up, then spent the rest of our day in Vernal. Now we get a week with the Cali family!

Tator showed up at our house just as we were about to pull out of the driveway. I told Jake I would take Tator since he had the other two kiddos!

Waiting for Daddy.

He liked his Red Vine

And his sticks...

"Buck. Buck. Buck."

I had a colleague come spend the week with me at work helping to sign off a task book I am working on. During the week she heard numerous phone calls with Jake planning this weekend. After one of the calls she commented to me how cool it is we just keep living life, even though we have little kids. I had never really thought about this, but I gave all the credit to Jake. He just makes it no big deal, and without all his help I don't think it would be possible. I am also so glad my kids will have the memories (or pictures) of these fun adventures they went on as little kids.

Tator made it all the way in, and Jake said when the bear came out of the tree he hadn't grabbed Tator and so Tator went after it and treed it all by himself. Such a weird/fearless dog!