11-21-2000, 07:14 PM
Do you know the difference between a fairy tale and a cowboy story?<br>A fairy tale starts out, “Once upon a time…”.<br>A cowboy story starts out, “Now this ain’t no sh*t….”.<br><br>Well, this ain’t no sh*t.<br><br>On Labor Day a few years ago, (a holiday here in the United States when a lot of people don’t work), my brother and I went fishing in the Snowy Range mountains west of Laramie, Wyoming.<br><br>It was a beautiful fall day. The temperature was in the high 70’s with a clear blue sky. You couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day for it. I ain’t lyin’. <br><br>We set up our tent and proceeded to the lake a few hundred yards away from camp. We fished for a while, swapped lies, poured a few beers down our necks and fished some more until we had burned up all the daylight.<br><br>After eating our days catch, we sat around the fire there at 9600 ft above sea level; the night air beginning to turn chilly. Having been born and raised in Wyoming, we both had sense enough to bring warm clothing along; because when the sun goes down behind Medicine Bow Peak, it gets COLD! It’s a good thing we did; and that’s the truth.<br><br>We drank cowboy coffee and smoked cigarettes while watching the stars in a coal black sky tle and shine like diamonds on velvet. If you’ve never watched the night sky without any other light source around, you are missing one of the most awesome and humbling things that can happen to you. I’m not kidding.<br><br>We finally turned in around midnight, climbing into our warm and comfortable sleeping bags feeling toasty warm.<br><br>At about 2:00 in the morning, I felt the need to answer nature’s call. (Too much coffee, I guess.) I tried to roll out of my sleeping bag, but found it impossible to do so. For some reason I could not roll over; I could barely move at all. I woke my brother and we both discovered to our horror that our tent was covered with snow! A freak storm. I kid thee not!<br><br>Luckily, the amount of snow was not enough to have buried us completely. We did manage finally to dig our way out of the tent. We quickly grabbed our tent, sleeping bags, fishing poles, pans, tackle boxes and backpacks and got off that mountain in a hurry. Hiking up to our fishing camp earlier in the day had taken a couple of hours. I know for a fact that getting down that snow-covered peak took about 30 minutes!<br><br>If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’!<br><br>We were slippin’ and slidin’. Poles, pans, and backpacks were flyin’ everywhere. Arms flaying the air, legs kicking, snow flying, soaked to the skin from the slushy early season snowfall, we were laughing our fool heads off. There was a marked trail leading down the mountain, but we kinda made our own trail, if you get my drift. (Get it? Snow? Drift?)<br>We got down to the area where we’d left the car, made a quick inventory to be sure we left with what we’d brung and got the H- E-Double-Toothpicks outa there!<br><br>We got back home a couple of hours later and the sky was clear with not a flake of snow to be seen anywhere. The temperature was in the low 60’s. The sun came up and it was going to be another beautiful day for fishing. We loaded the car, drove right back to our spot in the mountains. Didn’t sleep, didn’t eat. Just went fishing.<br><br>Didn’t stay the night, though.<br><br>And I ain’t lyin’! <br><br>by Stratbender : Wednesday 20 September, 2000 <br><br>Submit your Fishing Adventure Stories to win great prizes at ReMemory.Com