Well I’m back from my hunting trip. Post-mountains depression has struck, and I’m suffering. After spending 8 days in the Shasta-Trinity wilderness, and being completely disconnected from all tech gadgets, and the outside world, I’m back in Hayward. And I’m miserable.

It was a great year at “The Compound”. Me, Scott, Jimmy, and Kurt spend the entire week at the cabin. A few people would show up, stay for a few days, and leave. But they’d soon be replaced by others. We averaged 8 people each night. Neil, Scott’s father, was there and so was Scott’s little sister Karen.

A typical day of hunting starts early. Like, butt-crack of dawn early. The alarm goes off at 5:30am every day, and Scott makes sure you get up. It’s pitch-black dark outside and freezing cold. Just before the sun comes up, at around 6:30am, the temperature is at its lowest–around 38 degrees.

So Scott runs around the room each morning shaking everyone’s bed, yelling “GET UP! GET UP!” until you peel back your sleeping bag and stand up. You get dressed, drink a gallon of coffee, eat a bran muffin, and leave the cabin, headin’ up that mountain in the dark, in the cold, and almost every day in the rain, tired as hell, but happy as a clam.

Tuesday morning Scott and I are out hunting one of the clearcuts. It’s pouring down rain, and I’m semi dry under my poncho. A nice 3×3 buck sticks his head up, Scott sees him, and lead flies. It took us 4 hours to gut and skin that buck, he was huge. Neil, who’s been hunting up there for 40 years, tells us it’s the biggest buck he’s ever seen come off the mountain. When we were finished we split a 30 pack of Coors Light and a bottle of rum. Later that same day Karen shot her first buck, and good for her! She’s been hunting for 15 years, since she was 12. Neil, Scott and Karen’s father, was so proud of his son and daughter I thought his head would explode.

We spent the rest of the week walking up and down the mountainsides, through the mud and the rain and the snow. One afternoon we took a break to shoot 3 cases of clay pigeons with our shotguns. Other than that, we hunted pretty hard, from sunup to sundown, every day.

Trinity has the most breathtaking scenery in California, outside of Yosemite Valley. The steep, very steep mountains and old volcano craters and cones are covered in thick green trees. Pine, fir, oak, too many to list. This time of year some trees have changed colors, and stick out like a sore thumb in the verdant sea, with their firey leaves and yellow tones. When I close my eyes I see Trinity.

So I spend a week with Scott and our friends. I get home, unpack a little, and eat some leftover spaghetti, depression setting in. Scott calls me, and we talk for an hour, he’s depressed too. I just spent a whole week hunting with the guy, and we’re yakking on the phone? What are we, schoolgirls?

So I’m back now. Back in the city. It will take me awhile to recover, to get back to normal, whatever that is. Sometimes I wonder who the real Tom Bissell is. Is it the Tom Bissell that lives in the Bay Area, the techophile? Or is it the Tom Bissell that’s only alive when he’s in the mountains?

Is it a bear??? (click to enlarge pic)

Tomorrow I leave for our annual hunting trip. I’ll be up in Trinity for the next two weeks. I’m so excited I know I won’t be able to sleep tonight.

Two weeks of fresh air, pine trees, and sweeping alpine views. Two weeks of nightly bonfires, cocktail hours, and grilled tri-tip. Two weeks of ice-cold frosty mornings, bad coffee, and desolace.

No cell phones, not even a land line phone, no TV. Just a cabin on the side of a mountain overlooking a lake in the middle of nowhere. Two weeks, baby.

So much left to do, so little time. I still need to buy my hunting license and deer tags. I still need to load up on ammunition. I’m bringing all the dogs this year. I need to buy a few cases of clay pigeons, a few value packs of 12 gauge shotgun shells, 7mm magnum rifle ammunition, .22LR, 9mm, and .45ACP ammo.

Yep!