You’ve been looking at the same hillside for three days. First, with your bare eyes. Then through your binoculars. Something interesting, something that looks a whole lot like a deer flicking its ear catches your eye. Then you get out the spotting scope. What looked like a flick of the ear was a song bird flapping its wings on a bush. You go back to looking with your bare eyes. You continue on with the cycle, sneaking in a quick snooze every once in a while for relief and to refresh the world as you see it. Each completed cycle pulls the optimism down from your heart and turns it into worry in your guts. The pressure builds.

You’re 2,000 miles from home. A year’s worth of saving and planning rests on your shoulders. A wife or husband, kids, and work not done grabs hold of the saving and planning and pulls down harder. The buddy next to you, he’s killed a bull or a buck before, or one bigger than you’ve killed. You put your eye back on the spotter. Maybe you saw another ear flick. Your perspective shrinks to match the magnification of the spotter. There are no mountains, only landmarks that let you know you’ve glassed your whole section. There are no bushes or trees, only hides and likely bedding locations. The pressure builds.

You remind yourself of your character. You’re dedicated and tough. How would a dedicated and tough hunter handle themselves in this situation? They’d, of course, keep their eyes on the glass. Crank it up to 40x and scour. Then, they’d scour some more, scour until their head pounds and their eyes ached. Keep looking. Keep looking. Keep looking. The pressure builds.

The sun sets behind a craggy peak, but you don’t see it. Or if you glance at it and the magnitude doesn’t register. You see only the ghost and the hope of a gray-brown body standing up before the sun is gone and it’s too late. The ghost never shows. Your vision sucks in from the world around you and lives only in your head. You see your choices and question them. Maybe the day would have gone differently had you looked at that spot more, had you gotten up and moved. The tent breaks the wind when you crawl inside, and your sleeping bag is warm. But neither provides comfort. A hot tension sits in your chest. You can’t settle into sleep because you replay the lost time; you count the time you have left. It’s dwindling. The pressure builds.

It’s dark in the tent. Wind rustles the pine branches and you hear the last of the night critters making their way to their beds. Condensation drips onto your face from the tent wall. “Two days left,” you think to yourself, “only two more days.” A deep breath and a sigh, then a realization. “I’m fucking miserable. I’m not having fun. I’m in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I’m not having fun.” Your buddy snores, then shakes awake.

“How ya doin?” he asks.

“I’m good, man. I’m good,” you reply. And you mean it.

“Good,” he replies. “Should we get after it?”

“Yeah, man.”

Rocks crunch beneath your boots as you reach the crest of your glassing knob. You drop your pack and look around. For the first time since you got there, you really look around. The sun rises behind you and warms your back, it illuminates the ridge across the drainage. Water boils in your cook pot, breakfast and coffee on the way. 

“How should we do this today,” your buddy asks.

“Well, I guess we ought to look around a bit. I don’t think I’ve truly seen a damn thing since we’ve been here.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he replies.

The coffee’s warm the whole way down. The freeze-dried tastes good; you chew and eat slowly. More sun hits the ridge and birds sound in different melodies all around you. The stream gurgles at the base of the hill. You take a deep breath and slowly exhale. You look around.

A panorama takes shape as you lean back on your elbow and scan the scene around you. Another deep breath and long exhale. You dig in your pack and pull out your spotter and tripod. Eyes full of the world around you, worry gone from your guts and replaced by gratitude, perspective pulled back, you’re ready to hunt again. The pressure’s gone.

All that’s left is to look around and let things be what they are.

Maybe today’s the day.

(Photo credit: Elias Carlson)