“ As the date came closer, the weather forecast became worse.”
Georgi looking happy despite the conditions. Note the yellow dry bag for camera, matches, map, etc. a few hours got to the carpark. The higher we climbed and the further we got, the more we started to notice old snow that crunched under our feet. Another few hours and we made it to the hut, just as the weather started to spit. This was the start of a storm that would last for the next 40 hours. With wishful thinking we went for an evening stalk and got absolutely drenched. All we saw was more of those old round prints in the snow.
It was good to spend the night in a nice warm hut where we could get ourselves dry. Next day it was still snowing and raining so we occupied ourselves with cards, reading the hut magazines and gambling the squares of chocolate in our scroggin, but soon got bored from being hut-bound. Thankfully that evening there was a break in the weather so we made the most of it and went out to stretch our
legs. Snow was melting, as it often does immediately after a big fall, and we returned empty-handed, wet and drenched again from the dripping trees.
Next morning we awoke to snow everywhere and a bluebird day. During all the nasty weather we thought surely the animals would have been tucked away in the bush, so we decided to wander around until we saw some fresh prints in the snow, then follow them.
Before long we found some very fresh, well-defined deer prints so we slowed right down and started tracking the animal. It was hard to go quietly through the snow as the top layer was slightly frozen and would crunch underfoot. Then we came to a spot where suddenly the prints were further apart. It looked like the animal had suddenly started running instead of walking. We reckoned that
Georgi and me with the 7 pointer in the winter wonderland
14 NZ Hunting & Wildlife 196- Autumn 2017