IMPORTANCE OF BIVOUACKING:
The night before the climax of my successful 1980's hunt in area 502--many have suspected the location, but I now am willing to confirm due to revision of season dates and boundaries that resulted in inclusion of the territory that I previously hunted within today's 501, a season and area that I will likely avoid if I am blessed with miraculous physical regeneration and the ability to once again pursue Bighorn rams in the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness--
found me very close to a location where I had twice already been taken off my feet by wind earlier in the hunt.
On the day of the preceding misadventure, I had staggered into the lee of a boulder only to be instantly dusted like a powder sugar doughnut with the spindrift generated from fluffy layers which had previously resided under wind-shattered slabs of compacted crusty snow. The topmost and grainier portions of such slabs, icy pellets that averaged about the size of BB shot, had already pelted me to the point of frustration as the persistent and gusty wind found fractures and levered irregular slabs approaching four square feet of area into the maelstrom. There, they instantaneously disintegrated into densely-patterned, shotgun-like blasts that stung the minimal patches of skin I had to leave exposed for navigation. Even the impacts on my parka-shrouded arms and torso were wearying.
In the lee of the boulder, I doffed my pack and retrieved my wind gauge, an instrument I had owned for more than a dozen years without good cause. I held the gauge as far out into the wind stream as I could manage from the minimal shelter provided by the boulder. I watched with a mixture of concern and confirmation of my suspicion as the ball within the pitot tube would jiggle manically in the region of 35 - 40 MPH then suddenly shoot and peg itself firmly against the upper 65 MPH limit of the instrument's capacity. As a kid, I had lived with seasonal Santa Anna winds, which can sometimes exceed 100 mph; yet, I had never been literally taken off my feet. On that afternoon, I knew that I could not buck the wind and hike the miles back to my spike camp safely.
I opted to drop, probably 1500 vertical feet, to the shelter of timber. A photo of my bivouac site is posted below:
View attachment 183429
TO BE CONTINUED...
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