One day on the hunt in cascade mountains

In half the fourth in the morning I go out of the house. Crossing only guessing in complete darkness under the spans of the bridge is silent, but powerfully current Colombia and keep the path to the north – from Oregon to the neighboring state of Washington. Food on the hunt. The night highway is free, the police are not visible, the Antiradder is silent, calmingly hanging on the wheel with a green light, it would be possible to set gas, but, unfortunately, fog. In his gaps on the hills, it looks at the pure sky with the stars. The weather is promised good that in November in these parts in the North-West USA.

Deciding to become a hunter in America, you can do it in one day. Buy in the store a gun or rifle (no special permissions are required for it) and a license to hunt. The latter, together with a special booklet describing the permitted species, terms and regions of hunting, is in many stores. Ability to handle weapons and compliance with the established rules of hunting – this is your personal responsibility. In many states (and orders everywhere different) there are no formal exams on this knowledge, but the punishment for violations is severe. In the hunt, as in the whole other, here, in America, the law does not imply a violator in you and does not establish preventive obstacles (as it often happens with us), but it is inevitably punishable in the event of an unscrupulous following.

I asked for today’s hunt as a guest. Andrei Zagyakanov made me to this sacrament. Journalist and businessman, he is at the same time a professional conductor – a fisherman and a hunter with many years of travel experience in our European North, Siberia, North-West of the United States and Africa. Finding under his care, I get rid of the mass of problems – transport, choice of place and t. NS.

Hunting, as you know, in the forest. From this, apparently, it follows that I should describe how, tremble from impatience and joyful expectation, I am flying at the night interface as if on the wings – to the place of meeting at the petrol station in a small place Woodland ("Forest region") On the first day of opening of the hunt for a noble deer. But, I must disappoint you, I’m not a fanatic. And even moreover, constantly working in nature, I still do not like hunt. I do not give rise to my inspiration of shooting on unrequited hoofs with a not very meaningful look.

But the hunt played in my life a truly decisive role. Father began to take me to the hunt for years from five. The magnificence of the Volga region forever imprinted in memory and the soul in the frame of purely hunting romance – the sensation of serious severity of a trusted shot of a shotgun and exciting powder smell of worm stems. Already, I understand that the mining has never been for us in itself, the process was important. And this process did not just capture, he was the personification of his life itself, all the most important and wonderful. Fifteen years later, doing ornithology, I lost my hunting instincts, but the attraction to nature remains forever.

And now, working in the North-West USA, I could not but join what is so important for many residents of this region. In this part of America, hunting is included in the concept "life style", In addition, this is not just a hunt, it is the Western Hunting Industry, to meet with which I was simply obliged by the nature of my activities.

I approach the meeting place a little earlier – acquaintances are not visible, but life in the morning darkness is already boiling: the store at the petrol station – the outpost before the start of the forest mountain range – open. Many hunters start their route from here to this desired, all year expected day.

At the appointed time, everyone appears somehow. Our companions are mostly from these places, hunt all their lives here and will also hit me with ease with which they are focused among the same, at first glance, roads, slopes and valleys. The people are different, but the hunt, like a bath, is equal, and sometimes it also sets her own hierarchy, providing several times more experienced in hunting workers or a shoveline is the best chance than, say, Senator or Million. The last among us is two: Schimani’s talking glasses of Parry, refueling today’s hunting (this chance does not miss), and a silently smiling shimano – Japanese, who bought a business in Washington from Parry ("Shimano" – The best spinning coils and speed switches on bicycles are known worldwide).

Short greetings, rapid discussion of the strategy of action, I transplant from my urban car to Andrei to its more suitable for mountain and unconfalled roads "Iesuza" – And our cavalcade quickly picks up a height of a serpentine, climbing on the slope.

Anaturaj and ammunition with us – at the highest category: powerful Japanese cars with increased patency (only Parry rides on a new American all-terrain "Chevrolet". "Buying american car, I support the American economy!" Patriotism, however, did not prevent him from selling his business Japanese. Although this at some angles can also be viewed as support for the American economy). Each machine has a powerful radio that allows you to cross conversations and coordinate actions. Personal equipment everyone picked up on his own taste; The sophisticated Hunting industry of America provides unlimited possibilities for this: here you can buy cartridges, peasons, knives, guns, hunting clothes of any conceivable design and convenience (respecting refinement, I still prefer simple proven things).

In complete darkness, we are distributed at another invisible to me, but familiar to the rest of the hunters, divided and informing each other about the selected points of the radio. In the place where it was assumed to start a hunt, someone is already worth it, we have to turn around and call another slope. Stop and wait. Soon it will start light.

Everyone who hunted, knows that the dawn for the hunter – a special time. As the invisible earlier begins to guess in the first morning light, the hope of success is also becoming more distinct, the mood rises, and you already know that until the moment of midday disappointment, highlighting everything around in true prosaic light, there are some more wonderful hours.

Where we are, the morning is especially also the fact that it hides solid cuts like scars covering wooded slopes of cascade mountains. In the morning fog, a smoke curtain crawling between trees, even cutting looks like a magical and fascinating. During the day they remind the graveyard.

When you fly over the famous cascade mountains on an airplane or helicopter, you see a fantastic-beautiful panorama: silhouettes of rawls of volcanoes rising from green waves of mountains. But, looking around, you notice that the forest carpet is all in the rubbing rods extend for tens of thousands of square kilometers.

Catching of unique coniferous rain forests of the North-West US, which are no longer anywhere on Earth, is an immense and contradictory problem. Around it, along with salmon protection, the main drama of the relationship between nature and man develops in this region, involving a mass of environmental, financial, social and other conflicts into its turnover. Destruction of forests with 800-year-old trees is a tragedy, however, it is impossible to prevent it. Rubbi clearly illustrate the destruction of the original diversity of animal and plants species, but climbing the teenager serves as a feed for deer, which is not in such an abundance in primary high-herbal forests. As a result – together with the cutting forests – the number of deer not only did not decrease, but radically increased, and this serves as a reliable argument to the robust supporters of economic transformation of nature. For a biologist, such a position does not withstand critics, as the replacement of the original biological diversity on the heels "Economical attractive" species – this is not only not a solution to the problem, it is a disaster. However, today I am here present as a hunter and how the hunter should distract from environmental problems and rejoice in to game in these parts in abundance.

Gradually lights so much that you can finally make the first photos. We silently view the surrounding slopes in binoculars. Nothing. Switching by a pair of phrases with other participants, we decide to change the position. Hunting for a general style here is very different from the traditional Russian ideas about it. This is mainly the cores in the mountains on gravel (neither puddle nor dirt nor Koldybin!) Roads laid at different times for the export of wood (the forest pays for everything!) among endless cuttings, negotiations between machines, periodic congresses in one place (if you manage to track deer) for attempting to organize a pen. Shoot the beast from the car and from the road can not. Therefore, seeing deer, the hunter stops the car, jumps out of her a couple of steps to the roadside, focuses prey (in this state – only male!) through an optical sight.

Many of our hunters, having heard such a skeptically doubt – whether about the hunt at all? I attended the same thought since the morning, but, thinking, I found this explanation. First, in this, as in many ways, there are differences between Russia and America, between us and them, between our traditions and habits. Even such "automotive" Hunting Compared with a comfortable everyday American life creates a lot of difficulties and tiring, turning to the adventure and test. Secondly, in America not all so hunt. Some (their unconditional minority) still prefer to trample on the hunt Earth with their own legs, diverged through the debresses and getting a trophy and severe labor. A good example of the same one of our team – the driver comes in front of us "Toyota", Twenty-year-old John, whom Andrei in the eyes calls John Jonch (the son of a successful lawyer, whose name is John). On one section of the road, he, passing the steering wheel to the partner, pops up from the car and, having arranged an action plan, scattering up the steep slope to play a grove at the top. An hour later, John descends to the appointed place, not finding anything and absolutely soaked. It is immediately seen that this young man, at least hot, but in general, well done – knows how to rest. In a completely unreasonable speed (highly unusual tanchildie for rudely neat on the roads of Americans, undoubtedly associated with the hunting cast), our newly gathered cavalcade rushes to the next selected place for viewing. Suddenly the front car slows down sharply, and the hunters pop out from her with rifles. Deer. On the edge of the cutting, only a group of two males and six females comes from us. Moving animals slowly, and, on my unprofessional look, it looks like on the shooting booth. No shots – the males are closed with females, but in a second a nine-million "Remington" Clestly rives, sprinkling a busty jet of exhaust – and one of the males, jerking and ridiculously arguing the neck, with a ragged legs collapsed into the bushes. Bob Podal.

On the eve of the evening, checking cameras, binoculars, voice recorder and other field gear, I sat down at a computer to see what we have on deer and deer hunting on the Internet. The World Computer Network, which turned the whole world is not in one huge village, not in the market-attacker (where, as on the fence, everyone hangs any ads anything), it is thoroughly mastered by hunters and hunting organizations.

Here you can find everything: the density of animal populations and the number of animals produced in different regions; Weather satellite map at the moment and descriptions of hunting houses and hotels, hunting equipment directories (for which you can order directly from the computer screen: enthusiastic stories about hunting adventures (sometimes even in verse) with photos of lucky authors. In total, so much and all that brightly, which involuntarily pulls to disconnect from this informational magnificence and discover the incomplete traditional book, which speaks of one of the most common and popular hunting objects in this region of the United States. On deer.

In the field of field definition with crushed between pages, I read that this forest part

North America inhabited three types of deer, of which one is a noble deer – large, and white-tailed and black-chuckle – small, similar to our roe. American Noble Deer (Cervus Canadensis), called Indians "wapiti", essentially not different from our raybera. This is a large beast weighing up to 450 kg and with horns, the record dimensions of which are reached by almost two meters. The range of this species includes the forest north-west USA and wooded spaces of the Rocky Mountains.

Small deer: White (Odocoileus Virginianus) and BlackBust. Hemionus, nicknamed for her long-timeliness "Deer Mul") more common and distributed in the United States for most of the country. In many parks and forest arrays, these deer go to a person (poachers they don’t have to fear, they simply do not) and seem half-year animals. Noble deer – a much more serious and hidden beast, only in some of the decades of protected places falling towards.

Our first deer is small, with half-meter tidwood horns ("Slip"), but this is already prey. Special attention, however, it does not attract. Right on the spot it is broken by belly, and all the insides are simply emitted under the bush – Americans do not eat anything except meat. Everyone who at least once ate the properly cooked deer liver or language can only be grinned, but these are. I observing what is happening, I think that in Asian cultures (Mongolia, China) from the mined noble deer used absolutely everything. And this is not connected with a deficit of products, but with special healing properties of organs of this animal, many centuries, as you know used by Eastern medicine. Another evidence of the differences carefully thinking to all of the east and rapidly carrying forward (?) West. Even renovating from a purely medical aspect (how strong the healing effect is strong), I admit that the so-called "Primitive" Cultures with their practicality I am undoubtedly more pretty, rather than sophisticated in our comfort and wealth. And the northern people of Chukotka and Alaska, and American Indians, and Manchurian hunters stood in their culture much closer to the fact that "civilized" The world calls today "Sustainable development", implying the most efficient use of natural resources with simultaneous protection. Philosophy and life of all "Primitive" The ethnic of the centuries were based on the original understanding of the fact that both the person and everything around him both in the material and in spiritual spheres are inseparable in their unity and the relationship of the part of the whole. On the threshold of the XXI century, we theoretize on this account, explaining the paradigm of harmony unattainable for us with the full former dependence of small nation from nature. We often do it from a mentor position not a juicy teacher discussing a student, and at the same time I believe that our today’s world is less dependent.

My reflections, however, interrupts a new, unexpected turn of my satellites conversation.

Hunting just started, this is the first morning, and every hunter has the right to get for the two-week season only one beast. So, one license should now be closed, withdrawing one member of the team from the game. Someone recalls that Recently, Andrei was visiting his Russian from Canada, who bought a fishing license and a year’s hunting and went back to Canada, without using her. The temptation is so great that those present are unable to break away from the discussion of the current chance, while Andrei himself laughs to herself over what is happening – he is ready to give a free license in general "Having left the soul", But neither he nor i believe that our excited hunting partners will go to this in general, small wickedness. Too much like it is on the Americans, in good faith and holy of the following law. However, it is interesting to observe. Again the analogy with our realities. The Materia Devil of the Russian poaching in comparison with the unlocked currency of the tempting temptation in American law-abiding soil. In this comparison, I will already have the West more cute than much more native East.

We, of course, were right. We talked about the welcome travded, tickling my nerves, after which they decided that Tony was planning to hunt only two days and the day after tomorrow. The people were povelyukal, patting his hands on the shoulder of the badly of the belling mustache Tony, who took out of the pocket of neatly folded paper and began to fill it with Bob. Twice a lightweight deer dropped in the body caused by the mass of the truck simply (I will not make prey on leather seats), after which the terminal card license is tied like a tag, to the ear of the mined beast. The beginning is allowed, the season is open.

After that we hunt another afternoon. In one of the moments, finally the charter from the semi-unauthorized radio intergovernmental in the car, we go with Andrey in "Radiothen" – We visit one of the places known to him. Turn off the radio and go to the forest on foot. Makesy through the deaf spruce and, rejoicing, as it should be a hunter, that there are no extreme-shock-shoes nearby, I continue to think about Russia and America and remember a completely different hunt.

Many years ago we spent a whole month in the northern part of the Eastern Sayan – in Nights, without any contact with the outside world. It was a catering campaign, in which I, Biologist and Freshman, answered hunting. Taiga in this part of Siberia is truly a harsh world, where to get a trophy is much more difficult than in secondary, modified by man, the faults of the Cascade Mountains of Washington. Although the landscape and the nature of the vegetation of these areas are similar. In the campaign – intense physical work, half-rolled missing, it is not surprising that I really wanted to get a deer. But most of all I wanted to get a horns as a trophy. There was a lot of boyish in this, however I still remember how passionate was this desire.

The Sayan River with the sonorous name of Hoyte-Oka forever remained for me with a mounted symbol of long-range travel. Imagine thresholds and shevers surrounded by rock cliffs. Or a powerful raging stream, resting in gray with blue divorces, as if artificial. As in the Moscow metro, the marble wall (threshold "Marble"). And in one of the places, browsing the next threshold from the high shore and disappointing the trajectory of a powerful jet between the stones, I suddenly notice in flawlessly transparent water of a dry branch, strangely lying at the bottom. And in the next moment I already see the second same branch, located inconsistently symmetrically first, and I understand that at the bottom of the waters – huge deer horns. As we passed the threshold, I did not even notice, but when I picked up with a bidder paddle with a two-meter depth and pulled the horns on the surface. – then my heart beat faster than usual. Then we sailed a week on the kayak with these horns, then there was a problem, how to squeeze them into the train car, then – in a taxi on the Yaroslavl station, then the flight assessments of experts. I did not send them to Austria to the auction, did not sell and did not give, I keep them now and now.

We leave the forest on the opposite side of the steep slope, where a wide panorama of highlighted mountains opens up and all the same logging.

What is happening today reminds me of excited races on a huge, exotic, but still a wasteland. The abundance on it game does not change.

Observability, trash and destruction, and in some places – so just a garbage. It sounds rude, but another word for everywhere disfigured lap earth will not find. This unsightly comparison requires reservation and because the nature of America as a whole, and the North-West of the United States in particular, not just beautiful – it is amazing, unique and fascinates you instantly. However, all this magnificence most often witnesses in national parks and other protected places.

The thought itself turns to be only to guess and imagine how these blessed places could look like a hundred years ago, to a massive invasion of palely migrants from the east, when only Indian trails tied this last frontier to another incomplete lands of the United States with other land continent. I switched mentally for the future of forests in Siberia and the Far East – the second largest, along with Amazonia, from the last regions of truly wildlife throughout the land. Those who want to use our forests like these are enough and we have at home. And here in the USA. and in Japan and in Europe. But this is a separate conversation.

Returning to the car and turning on the radio. We get along the sandwiches and again plunge into the already silent bustle of radio. Learn that Parry also got a deer, and Gleb – Son of Andrei. Ranil the third, who finished later unfamiliar hunter, thereby getting all the right to prey.

Noon behind. Beast after morning feeding is now lying in more often. Before evening twilight you can hunt only. Hoping for an unlikely good luck. I decide to come back.

When we again go all together to the agreed point, I replant in the car to a high hunter hunter with a pleasant face and nickname. Fully displaced the name Gray Grach (American Bird, externally, there is an average between the starling and grace). He also goes home and brings me to refueling. I look at almost winter slopes of mountains that are already losing autumnally multiwette: a little further when the forests and farms deleted from each other begin to appear. – On Saturday Provincial America, and Gray Grach tells me on the way one of my old hunting stories. But in the hunting stories that the most important thing? The main thing is to stop.