MERIDIAN —     The arrival of September fuels the memory and imaginative portions of my mind. For now I know the huge antlers of the majestic bull elk have been stripped of their summer velvet and polished clean on the juniper brush of the valleys and ridges that slope from high, snowy peaks where I hunt them at every opportunity; I and many others who are drawn there.

    Every autumn and winter thousands of Americans seek adventure in hunt areas far from their homes, typically in remote mountainous regions. The change in altitude and weather challenges the body and mind of these hunters. Stories of hardships, injuries, brushes with death and even death itself abound. Scores of people rush to question why.

    If the question is intended as criticism from someone who has already decided that such quests are eccentric behavior inappropriate for rational people, it will get no answer here because it is not a question but rather a conclusion. But for those who are genuinely puzzled because they would never risk health, well being and perhaps death for the sake of a wilderness or mountain hunt, the answer is really quite easily found.

    I have long been captivated by stories of hunts into the snowy upper reaches of this continent. Since as a pre-teen I first read Jack London's accounts of his adventures and the exploits of writers like Jack O'Connor, I have felt the magnetic pull that eventually drew me to hunt these wild places and even live for a time near such wildernesses.

Quest for change



    Perhaps my love of the cold and desolate spots is rooted in aspirations for something different from the hot and populous region of the country where I was born and raised. Others may equally be attracted to the many exciting secrets of spacious deserts or dense, lush swamplands. For me it is the mountains.

    My personal surrendering to these cravings has meant that a considerable portion of my recreational days has been spent in the haunts of my dreams. So I offer an analysis of motivation from at least this one perspective.

    Regardless of where our land of romance exists I suggest that what takes us there are three of life's endeavors; adventure, goal seeking and testing ourselves.

    The prospect of adventure has motivated millions throughout the history of mankind. Some of our well known historical figures were simply adventurers who discovered something or accomplished something important. Today, many of us thirst to discover things important to ourselves when we venture into the vast, uninhabited forests of distant mountains in pursuit of game such as that big deer that Indians called wapiti.

    I rarely spend a week in the wapiti’s haunts that is void of adventure. I will squeeze around a narrow icy precipice or sleep where bears and cougars sleep or come upon a miner’s cabin or find a spent shell casing from the 1940s. Or, another of my actual experiences, find a preserved coral reef at 7,000 feet above sea level.



The goal



    Secondly, for hunters, there is the goal of finding and taking a fine wild animal such as an elk. Setting the goal involves planning which most of us find as exciting as the hunt itself. The maps and the equipment and the strategy to reach that goal, and then at last bagging the elk – even if it comes at the end of five years hunting, which is the average, are all part of this motivating force.

    Lastly, testing oneself is a strong enticement for me and others. Can I measure up to those who survived the harsh winters of the mountains? Whether they were those who cut the first trails west or the hardy ones who lived all their lives in unforgiving climate and unforgiving terrain, am I less a human being than they? Am I weaker or less rugged or lacking in woodsmanship or survival skills?

    If I find that I can, even in small ways, compare myself to them, or at least learn what they conquered, a worthwhile satisfaction ensues.

    So off we go to the great mountains, or to wherever our challenge appears, for adventure and to bag the bull and to see if we are up to it. And in the case of searching out elk, because we are hunters we must go. It is who we are and, as a consequence, what we do.