If you’re like me, and I’m guessing you are, hunting has completely consumed you. Besides family, it is the main driving factor that dictates how you live your life; it makes the rules. Your travels, your friends, and your free time all revolve around it. Any excuse to throw on some merino wool and a puffy jacket, you do it. Every chance you get to bring up hunting or talk about it, you do… without fail… every time.
Your loved ones think you have a problem, but what do they know? They’ve never been 30 yards away from a bugling bull elk during the middle of September. They’ve never woken up at 3:15 AM, braved the freezing cold, and hiked off trail for miles in the dark just to reach a glassing knob with the hopes of finding the one.
The truth is, most don’t understand us and likely never will. And that’s okay. Let them carry forward with their padel ball, their video games, or whatever it is ‘normal’ folk do today. As much as they don’t understand us, we don’t understand them. How could one not hunt? How could they not feel this relentless pull towards the wild? Where is their primal urge to provide and truly know the land that we live on?
It seems as if humanity, at least here in the Western world, has forgotten what it is to be alive. The concrete jungles built up around us and the careers that lie within have fettered the masses and put a major damper on our primal instincts, but I believe that, in many, they are still there waiting to be awoken.
For us, though, we are alive and well. We’re committed to the mountains and the pursuits that she holds within. In love with the misery laid out by such a vast and beautiful place. We’re addicted to that feeling of success that comes along only so often, and sticks around just long enough to taste it, but then it’s gone again.
I’ve often tried to pinpoint exactly what it is about hunting that makes this relationship the way it is. What I’d like to think is that hunting is the most rounded, challenging thing one could possibly do on earth.
For those of you who hunt, you will know and feel what I put down next; for those of you who don’t, hopefully this will give you some good insight into our ‘why’.
First, hunting is in your DNA. It’s who we are as a people and how we’ve made it this far. Your genetic memory, passed down by your ancestors, lives within you and pulls you back to the wild places we once called home. It wasn’t until very recent times that we stopped hunting for our own food. Our ways of life have evolved away from this since then, but biological evolution takes thousands and thousands of years, and we haven’t.
Second, hunting puts some of the healthiest and best-tasting meat on the table and fills your freezers for the year to come. It fuels your body better than what you could get at a grocery store. Until someone’s tried it, they wouldn’t know. Most meals leave you heavy and lethargic, not this one. It’s a different kind of energy—clean, lasting, and steady. There’s a lightness to it, a clear focus, and the sense that you’re immediately ready to go.
The meat is exceptional, but the challenge is even more. This sort of challenge gives you a sense of purpose and meaning; a constant desire to want more. It is constantly changing and impossible to predict. It’s the type of challenge you’ll never fully beat or overcome, and if you could, you probably wouldn’t do it. This is the meat and potatoes behind why I think most people do it; this is what sinks its teeth in and never lets you go.
The physical challenge is immense. The miles are long, the mountains are steep, and the terrain can be downright evil. Even when you’re in shape and prepared, she’s never easy.
The mountains show mercy to no man. She takes what she can and she takes often.
Skin, sweat, and blood are regularly lost to her. But she has your soul, so you keep coming back time and time again.
If the physical challenge of surviving her wasn’t enough, surely the mental will do you in. The hunt will test you like no other. It will expose who you are at your core and strip you back layer by layer. Some hunts end quickly, but others drag on and on. The weather beats you, the animals show themselves then disappear, and ‘your one shot’ is lost in the blink of an eye.
Somehow, though, upon your success or return, you quickly forget the pain and heartache. Like the pain of getting a tattoo, the memory is lost in what is left. The addiction is all that remains.
If all this sounds like you, you are one of us. You’ve been taken in and consumed. Consider yourself lucky because, as you already know, this is one of the best journeys you could take part in. It reshapes who you are as a person and positively influences all aspects of your life. The vigor with which you attack the mountains leaches into everyday life back home.
It’s safe to say the relentless pursuit of the wild is here to stay, and you probably wouldn’t have it any other way.
