What got me thinking about mudding, again, were the two open-sided, covered-with-mud rigs making turns onto University Way in Ellensburg on Sunday. The young, mud-splattered drivers were hooting it up back and forth over some recent, and obviously exciting, adventure.

“Mudding” is the “fun” tag used all too often for tearing through high country meadows with four-wheel-drive and off-road vehicles. It destroys fragile wildlife habitat and delicately-balanced ecosystems.

I am already hearing rumors about such damage out on public – primarily U.S. Forest Service – ground around Paradise. Maybe winter was just too long. Maybe it was the stress of Shelter in Place and the boredom of the Pandemic rules. Or maybe the dirty mudders just had to break loose.

With the human turnover here in Paradise of Washington, the “Please don’t go mudding in mountain meadows!” message gets lost over time and some immature drivers start looking for excitement in the mud. It seems like every couple years, the sheriff’s office, and state and federal land agencies have to get serious about the damage to meadows around the valley. 2020 is looking like one of those years.

I learned about mudding a couple decades ago. An early twenty-something student and I were discussing the joys and frustrations of owning a four-wheel-drive rig.  He explained to me about his serious “mudding” in the forest – said it was as close as he could get to heaven while he was at CWU.

Of course, I do not know for sure that those two mud-covered rigs had been messing around in some public meadow. I was just playing the odds in my mind. Unfortunately, they were long gone down some side street by the time I got turned around to chat with them.

It is an issue. Over the past decade and more, damage to meadows and wetlands has off and on reached crisis proportions on our county’s public lands. Serious damage has been found in the L.T. Murray, up the Taneum, up Reecer Creek and on Buck Meadows.

What does Aserious@ really mean? The Cle Elum Ranger District, Washington Fish and Wildlife, Department of Natural Resources and the Kittitas County Sheriff are loaded for bear. Mudding is not allowed on any public land in the County. And anyone caught in a meadow, mudding or just making ruts, will be automatically assuming all responsibility for expensive repairs. Driving through a wet meadow or wetland such that a tire sinks into the soil can cost several hundred bucks, with fines ranging from $100 to $5,000, depending on the damage and the cost of repairing it.

Over the years, I have suggested that we need a private Mudding Park – something like a WallyMudWorld for 4x4s, maybe. Some years back, the Cowboy Church held a “mudding competition” on private ground out in the valley. A number of us hoped that might last, but it faded away. For many years, there have been off-road vehicle opportunities out in Grant County (see www.grantcountywa.gov/sheriff/specops/ORV/), but that isn’t, apparently, meeting the full “need” for mud. No matter how the need gets met, it simply can’t be allowed to happen on the sensitive meadows around Paradise.

The Mudding Prevention Subcommittee of the Reecer Creek Rod, Gun, Working Dog & Outdoor Think Tank Benevolent Association is debating a flyer to be posted on windshields of muddy rigs, advising the driver of the cost of meadow damage and suggesting that samples of mud from the vehicle have been supplied to the pros at the Cle Elum Forest Service District for comparison with damaged meadows. We are also working on designs for “Mud Ranger” badges. Don’t wait for these things, however, your eyes and ears are needed now.

If you spot a vehicle you suspect has been out mudding in all the wrong places, the County Sheriff or Cle Elum Forest District Rangers would like to know. Remember Sheriff Clay’s rallying call: “Give us the dirt on mudders!” Make the call; help them figure out who’s going to pay for the damage.

If you see damage happening, get descriptions and license numbers and immediately call Kittcom at 509-925-8534 for a response from the sheriff’s office, Washington Department of Natural Resources or Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. If you find recent damage or other evidence, call the Cle Elum Forest Service District Ranger at (509) 852-1100.

Join the posse. Do your part. Keep the above numbers handy.  This is important.

Memorial Day Weekend. That long mid-spring weekend when the outdoor world traditionally welcomes family camping, fishing, and carousing. Traditionally.

Thus, several homeys have bent my ear over the past few days about the probabilities of family camping, fishing, and carousing actually happening in this 2020 Age of CoronaVirus. “Look,” I have heard more than once, “this is the year – and the weekend – we promised to do more camping and fishing with the kids. They’re finally big enough to belong out there and do their part at camp, and we promised months ago, and… So. Will there be any open camping areas?” I have had to confess that I just don’t know.

There are certainly moves afoot to have some campgrounds on public land opened by this big weekend, but (as of early this week) I know nothing. It is clear that large numbers of us want – need – to be in the woods around a fire with family and friends. It is also clear that, if that somehow becomes possible, there will be some pretty solid “safety” guidelines issued for behavior and distancing and so forth. Any opening will be watched pretty closely. We’ve already seen openings retracted because of overly enthusiastic and unacceptable public risk-taking afield. The whole picture right now makes me a bit ill, but it is what it is.

My grandhucklings are bugging me every phone call about getting out this summer. Can I promise camping and fishing when I come to Colorado? Do I promise to help them make stories like their parents tell? Hmmm???

Invariably, they want the “Yellowstone Story.” Probably something to do with the fundamental moral correctness of kids and parents camping and fishing. Be that as it may, they love the story.

Okay… When my oldest were still too small to do much fishing, we camped in Yellowstone. I vividly recall a very early morning on Yellowstone Lake in July. It was one of those mornings when I felt totally alive, when the colors in the morning sun were deep and rich, and the air gently flowed through every cell of my being. I stood at the edge of that clear, cold lake casting for cutthroat trout, knowing that if this was my last morning on earth, it would be okay. I was even catching a few 14 and 15 inchers.

Down the beach was another man, also fishing. Fiftyish, I guessed, a bit older than most with young kids. He commented about the morning and how badly he needed to be fishing again, and almost nervously rigged his gear. Then I understood his nervousness. Down the trail behind him came a woman and two little six- to eight-year-old girls. It was all over. He would get them rigged, and while they were casting, he would turn to his own rod. One time, he even got to squat down next to his rod as a fish played with his bait, before the cries of frustration over tangled lines, hooked limbs (girls’ and/or trees’) or lost bait drew him away from his own fishing. Just as I was thinking, “No thanks,” his wife hugged him and offered to remove the girls so he could relax and fish. He wrinkled his nose and said, “No… Thanks. I need to relax, yeah, but what I really need is you guys.” He dismantled his gear and got serious about teaching his girls to fish. Last I remember, he was grinning ear to ear, helping the little one unhook a trout. I got it – we need nature and fishing.

Okay. That question of whether or not public ground camping and fishing will soon open to family and small family-friend groups. The Covid-19 curve is beginning to flatten, but many folks are fretting a bit over the possibility of out-of-control openings leading to sudden closures again. Then, too, critics of opening the outdoors are watching closely for any evidence of “dangerous” behavior once families and groups are actively outdoors. We must be safely ready.

Given these concerns a large number of national, state, and local conservation organizations are cautioning hunters and anglers to maintain social distancing practices and follow directives set forth by their home states and the Center of for Disease Control and Prevention. Last week, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Program helped launch the #ResponsibleRecreation (hashtag ResponsibleRecreation) campaign in a coordinated effort with the National Wild Turkey Foundation, Congressional Sportsman Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Trout Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

Basically, this larger conservation community sees the #ResponsibleRecreation campaign as a safe and constructive way to encourage individuals and families to get outside (hunting, fishing, shooting, or any other outdoor activities) and enjoy the outdoors as a constructive way cope with the current Covid-19 pandemic and practice social distancing. The campaign recommendations may seem a bit trite, but, given the current climate around these “opening” questions, they make good sense – and for our kids’ focus, too.

Taking the #ResponsibleRecreation pledge and staying safe outdoors means: planning ahead and getting licenses and park passes online; recreating close to home; following best practices for avoiding Covid-19; following state and federal guidelines; packing out trash as a courtesy to others and avoiding an appearance of overuse; and sharing your adventures respectfully on social outlets.

Here’s the pledge: “I take the pledge to practice #ResponsbileRecreation and support efforts to get people outdoors during these difficult times. I pledge to staying safe outdoors during the pandemic as I enjoy the plentiful recreational opportunities this great nation has to offer.” Check it out at www.responsible-recreation.org/take-the-pledge.php.

Probably because we in Washington (and elsewhere around the West) have been largely housebound for some weeks, the recent (finally!) opening of state land sent a number of homeys – single and in small groups – rushing out onto the deer and elk wintering ground around us to find the antlers buck deer and bull elk no longer needed. The “shed fever” that affects some folks always surprises me a bit – it’s a big deal both here, and far, far beyond our part of Paradise.

There’s just something that gets people excited about finding a cast “horn.” In Washington, any naturally cast antler found can be kept, and among most any wildlife nut’s prized possessions will be a shed antler with a good story about where and when it was discovered – or even the buck or bull who dropped it. The passion for hunting sheds across wildlife areas and wintering grounds can cause folks to ignore rules. I have already heard several complaints (and stories of law enforcement citations issued) of people sneaking onto closed or private ground and harassing elk while trying to find freshly shed antlers. One of my favorite homeys reported moving through state wildlife wintering ground at the first legal moment it opened, only to find that the sheds had already been gathered up – on ground which every year held a number of shed antlers. Some people get a bit overexcited.

As you know, antler bone grows quickly as blood‑engorged tissue, protected by velvet – a hairy skin. (If humans could grow bone as quickly, broken bones could heal in three days.) By late summer, the bone in the antlers is fully hardened and the velvet is rubbed off. Then, by early to mid-spring, testosterone levels have hit bottom, the cells at the base of the antlers have granulated and the antlers have painlessly (+/-) dropped away at the pedicel. (Testosterone levels drop because of decreasing activity of the pituitary gland, largely due to winter’s shorter hours of daylight.) Anyhow, those dropped sheds are somewhere out there on wintering grounds, much of which is public ground.

Punch “shed antler hunting” into your preferred search engine. That will yield thousands articles and stories about when, where and how to hunt them, along with anything to know about storing, selling, buying, collecting, mounting, sportsmanship, or salivating over shed antlers. Find how to train dogs to find antlers (Labrador retrievers come up most often), find the right “shed hunting partner,” find the current sale and purchase value of sheds in various conditions, and explore the how or why of getting kids out looking for cast antlers. Think of any related cast antler subject, and it will be addressed on the web.

The biggest club, arguably, is the North American Shed Hunters Club (NASHC), headquartered in Wisconsin. This is the “official scoring, measuring and record book authority for North American Big Game Shed Antlers since 1991.” Included are caribou, deer, elk, moose, and pronghorns (although pronghorns shed a horn, not an antler). It has a regularly updated record book, measurers, appearances around the country and a lively blog. At www.shedantlers.org you can view record book sheds, download your own measuring forms and arrange to have your shed entered into the record book. In the store you will find t-shirts, hats and the Club’s book, Shed Antler Records of North American Big Game – Fifth Edition.

Something different? The Quality Deer Management Association has a great article about off-beat ways of finding sheds. Just check out www.qdma.com/weird-ways-to-find-shed-antlers/.

Passion and violence? Google “Jackson Hole shed antler hunt 2020” and read about the fist fights and battles over who saw what first – even though it was hours before antlers could be legally picked up.

Kids? Well, you know what a fan I am of any excuse to get kids and grownups outdoors. Check out Robert Loewendick’s Hopewell, Ohio, based “Shed Antler Hunting with Kids.” Still a wise, funny, and great read, you’ll find it at www.backwoodsbound.com/yantlers.html. (Imagine trying to get kids back inside after they’ve found a shed…)

What might a shed be worth, these days? It depends on grade (condition), which runs A to C. Grade A is a brown antler with no cracks, grade B is smooth to the touch with minor cracking (often white on one side and brown on the other), and grade C is weathered, cracked and rough to the touch. Currently (as of 1 May, 2020) prices for elk antlers are $2 to $13 per pound, with all deer and moose antlers in the $1 to $10 per pound range. Matched sets of cast antlers – depending on Boone and Crocket measurements – might bring anywhere from $150 to $1500 for the set. Find current info at antlerbuyers.com/get-antler-prices/.

Where and when to hunt sheds in the Paradise of Central Washington? Start with current wildlife area maps, such as the “L.T. Murray Green Dot Cooperative Road Management Area map” available at the DNR office at the airport, DFW’s Region 3 office in Yakima, and some sporting goods shops.

For these or other wildlife area questions, feel free to contact Melissa Babik, Wildlife Area Manager for the L.T. Murray, Quilomene, Whiskey Dick and Skookumchuck, at 509-925-6746.

Enjoy the game. Have fun. Play nice with the other kids.

As women hunters and fishers continue to be the fastest growing segment of our outdoor sports, I know we are seeing a slow shift. Still, the majority of the credit we give for our love of wild things and wild places generally goes to our dads. I readily credit Ray Fontes (my dad) and Bob Huckabay (my father – the “Old Man”) for being my heroes and outdoor mentors until their deaths (and beyond). In truth, my life-long outdoor story circles around my mother.

She loved camping and being outdoors. She never hunted, although I know she fired off a round or two. I think she caught one fish in her life. Yet, she always spoke of fish and game as a gift – as some sort of blessing for our family’s sustenance. Among hundreds of such moments, she joyfully served the fish Cousin Ron and I caught when we were young boys, all the while commenting on the sweetness and healthfulness of those fresh trout.

My mother was a woman of grace and gratitude. When I was eleven, the Old Man and I were building a small house on a burned‑out basement that he and mom had scratched together money to buy in the early 1950s in East Wenatchee, Washington. We lived in the capped-over basement. They were broke, feeding three young sons from hundred-pound bags of potatoes and dried beans from the Columbia Basin. He and I were racing winter, roofing, as a rooster called from the neighboring orchard. Pheasant season was open, but he was roofing. He’d tack a shingle, the bird would cackle, and he’d hang his head. Finally, he slid over to the ladder and climbed down off the roof. I heard the door open, then close. I heard the closing of the bolt on that old J.C. Higgins 12 gauge, the rush of wings, the cackle, and one shot. My mother walked out into the back yard. She took the shotgun and the bird, and smiled. “Thank you, Bob,” she said. “This will be our best supper in weeks.”

Over the years, I got a similar response every time I brought home mallards, geese, pheasants, grouse, quail, doves or fish or big game. They were cleaned, of course, when I offered them.

As I grew, she made sure I knew how to properly clean and pick or skin any critter I might pursue. It was respectful, she would say; if we didn’t respect the birds, fish and animals which gave themselves, we would not be well sustained by them. Early on in that training, she smiled and added, “And, if you respect me, you will clean your fish and game before you offer it.”

As we learned to age, cut, process and wrap our own game meat, she was always in the kitchen.  All of us, down to the smallest of us, would be up to our elbows in one job or another. Whether it was making sure the carcass was totally clean, cutting or trimming steaks, roasts or stew, turning the grinder or wrapping for the freezer, she acknowledged the work, the worker, and the food we prepared. There was always a reminder on her lips about how good it was that we could be so properly fed by the wildlife that was part of our lives, and always a prayer of thanks for the gift of the deer or elk or antelope. Nothing was wasted.

The year we moved into that basement, the Old Man and three neighbors went bear hunting out of Leavenworth, Washington, on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. That old berry-fattened bear was as fine as anything we’d ever eaten, and we treasured our quarter of it. Mom heard that neighbor Barney had convinced the other men that bear meat wasn’t fit to eat – the Huckabays were poor white trash that would eat about anything. After my mother talked to their wives, the rest of the bear was dug up, cleaned and eaten.

My Tacoma Grandma Minshall fawned over any fresh food that Grandpa or any of the rest of us provided from the sea or field. “Such great providers,” she would invariably say.

Throughout our kid lives, Cousin Judy and I would raid my Aunt Evy’s flower garden up the Little Chumstick, out of Leavenworth, for worms to go catch trout. When we brought our willow stick stringers of fresh cleaned trout back to the house, she would snatch them away and tell us how valuable such food was to our family and how generous God was with us.

Aunt Teen, Cousin Ron’s mother, didn’t care for fish and game, but she prepared it with respect and love. She always made a point of telling us she was proud of our ability to keep the Yakima branch of the family nourished with fish from the Naches or birds from the Lower Valley.

Seems like our fathers – our dads – take the lead in helping us learn our lessons and develop our outdoor skills. We easily give them the credit they have earned. Yet, in literally countless ways, our mothers make all those lessons possible.

In one of my earliest little kid memories, I was telling my mom how I needed to be outside by the trees and the quail and the rabbits and the sun. Without a word, she smiled, stood up, walked to the door and held it open.

Who REALLY shapes the outdoor people we become? How important is Mothers’ Day to you?

Happy Mother’s Weekend, moms! Thank you.

Perhaps it has been bugging you, too. For several weeks now, two or three days at a time, strong gusty winds have been reminding us of just why we love Paradise so much. Given the already testy attitudes of some of my favorite homeys, the wind inserting itself into our psyches has put a couple of them just a bit over the edge.

Late last week, we held a very small and properly-socially-distanced impromptu meeting of the Reecer Creek Rod, Gun, Working Dog & Outdoor Think Tank Benevolent Association RCRGWD&OTTBA) outside Bi-Mart. The round robin was surprisingly subdued and a bit sad, as we mused about Corona Virus, safety, and the closed fishing, hunting, hiking or meandering on most of our surrounding public land. The rising frustration of outdoor nuts spilled across the lips of the homeys present.

Atop that frustration of “stay off public ground” was the off and on buffeting wind: stymying efforts to relax and enjoy our own back yards. The combination has been really fraying some folks’ nerves. At one point, Homey John blurted out “What is this *&#?! with the wind? I stepped around a corner into a blast of wind yesterday and suddenly I just wanted to pop someone! What’s that about?”

“Well,” I opined, “short fuses and flaring tempers in wind are most generally associated with hot dry winds, like the Santa Ana winds of Southern California and the Sirocco winds of North Africa, I’m guessing that you are serious need of some peaceful time in a forest or out in the sage-steppe. I know you love those grounds that are closed, but you can still go hike the National Forest… AND the governor will announce some openings soon… You’re almost free!”

Homey Thomas piped in with, “Actually, the wind is already free. I have a growing admiration for it. I want to be more like the wind.” To a scowl and quizzical look, he said, “Look, the wind gets to go wherever it wants right now. It has total freedom. I want to be like the wind!”

I wandered from that confab weighing my responsibilities as resident meteorologist of the RCRGWD&OTTBA and Chair of the Human Response to Weather Subcommittee. Hmmm. If knowledge is power, maybe a brief study of our winds will fortify us and our senses of humor.

Try this. Air is just a light fluid. Like water and other fluids, it seeks “leveling.” Lift a bucket of water from a tub, and the other water flows to the fill in the hole. Same with air.

Warm air may be light enough to create a “low pressure” area. More dense air (from a “high pressure”) may then flow to fill it. Air moves always from high to low pressure, down what is called a “pressure gradient.”

We have three general types of winds in Paradise: cyclonic, mountain‑valley and katabatic. All are responding to one or another pressure gradient.

The vast majority of our winds blow in from the northwest, along our valley’s unique topographic northwest-southeast alignment. Our strongest winds will be associated with a high pressure over the cool water off our northwest coast and a low pressure from warming out in the Columbia Basin (or even in southern Idaho) creating a steep pressure gradient. You already know that we are into our windy season.

Cyclonic winds come with large storm systems moving across the region. The big winds on the coast the last couple winters were cyclonic winds, moving around, and into, the lows at the center of the storms (cyclones).

Mountain-valley winds move up and down the canyons around Paradise, as a result of differential heating and cooling. Warming atop a hill may draw air up (morning valley breeze); cooling or snow up high may increase the density of air until it slides down (evening mountain breeze) into the valley.

Katabatic winds blow downhill. Our most common katabatic wind is the Chinook (though we see less of it than, say, White Swan or Wenatchee). Air moving up the west side of the Cascades may push up against a “lid” of stable air over the crest and be forced down the east side and/or drawn into a sunny and warm area of low pressure off to the southeast. Heated by compression as it flows downhill into Paradise, it becomes relatively drier and drier (thus our “rainshadow”).

Winds here are strongest during the warming season and in afternoon/evening – thermally driven. There certainly are calm periods through the year, although along the higher ridges around us the winds are relatively dependable. As the air rises up onto and over those ridges, it is compressed to varying degrees against that stable upper atmospheric “lid.” That compressed (more dense) air will move a turbine blade more easily than less dense air at a given speed. Thus are fueled the wind turbines around our valley.

Want to see a bigger picture? Find current (and recent) winds at Bowers Field, get online and check out tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/weather/current/KELN.html. For wind and temperature patterns along a very cool interactive I-90 profile between Seattle and Ellensburg, go play at a site which is occasionally down: i90.atmos.washington.edu/roadview/i90.

Celebrate the glorious, if occasionally cursed, winds bringing us spring. Say a prayer for those poor devils who live in calm, dead places and must breathe the same air over and over and over.