Dear Friends,

            I hope this spring finds you well. With the way the weather has been in Utah, I am not sure that it is spring at all. Nevertheless, I hope everything is going how you had planned for 2008

            I thought I would share an experience that happened to a friend and me the other day. I received a call from one of my best friends at 9:30 p.m the other night ago. He drew a hunting tag and wanted to know if I would go up the next morning and help him put up a couple tree stands. I cleared it with Heather and asked “we should be back by 11:00 a.m., right?”  His reply was maybe even earlier than that.

            I promised my friend, I wouldn’t use his name--but he has letters in his name that are S-h-a-w-n—H-a-r-d-i-n-g.  He picked me up early the next morning. We loaded my Polaris Ranger and headed for the hills. With so much snow pack this year, we were not sure what to expect. It was still pretty early in the morning and very cold upon arrival and we quickly unloaded the Ranger. We began our 13 mile journey over frozen snow on the road and under beautiful blue skies.

            We made it to “our secret spot,” trudged through 4 feet of snow and set up our tree stands. Everything was going as planned until we started to make our way back to the truck. It was a gorgeous day--the sky was blue and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The temperature was rising and I found myself stripping down to a short sleeve shirt. We found out rather quickly that there was a problem.  The snow was not frozen anymore and our Ranger was far too heavy to stay on top of the snow. This was at about 10 a.m..

            It was like a bad dream, we would get high centered on the snow, dig out underneath and then winch ourselves to the nearest tree. This transition went on and on.  Thank goodness for a few packs of Lays Stackables and an old bag of jerky left in the ranger. We continued our digging & winching routine time after time. It was hard to keep our spirits up moving about 40 yards at a time (the length of the winch cable and the tow strap) but we continued. By 3:00 p.m we realized that we were never going to make it. We then had the idea of going down to the river and riding in the river upstream until we made it to the truck. We tried this approach.  There is not enough paper to describe that this was not a well thought out idea. Bad decision would be a modest choice of words to describe our survival in the river and trying to get back out.

            Once out, (now about 7:30 p.m) we knew our families were probably really starting to worry about us. Exhausted, we decide to make a fire and dry ourselves out from the river wild. I tried drying out my socks by keeping them on my my feet and putting them close to the fire. My side kick mocked me about my approach while he hovered his over the fire with some sage brush. I warned him that they may melt; but, I was assured that his socks were too wet to melt and this was the proper approach to dry out wet socks. When we thought that things couldn’t get worse, they did. His socks caught on fire and melted from mid arch to the toe. They now looked like some sort of aerobic leggings. It was funny--but considering the circumstances, it wasn’t.

            To make a long story short, we were pleasantly surprised to see headlights about 1:30 a.m from my father and friends coming to our rescue. They helped us push and pull our way back to the truck. It was nice to finally be back at home by 3:30 a.m. We were a little late!  It just feels good to sit here on the computer, in a warm house, with a full stomach, and write about my most recent near-death experience. It is good to be alive. Too bad I had to be stranded to help me remember all of the good things in my life. I wish I had more time to tell you about the river experience. I hope all is well with you and your family. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you. Stay away from the frozen snow that gets soft when it warms up. Have a great month.

Kenny Parcell