Brett's Date Disasters: Part I - Night of The Living Moose

 

Over the past few months, my blog has received a lot more traffic and interest than in the past few years. I think I have the Big-D to thank for that (that is “Divorce,” not the other Big-D, but they kind of feel the same).  So naturally, I have had more people asking me about blog topics. But do they want heartbreaking stories of families falling apart, family travel, witty lists involving poor drivers? Nope. Across the board everyone has asked me for bad dating stories; nothing more exciting than a car-wreck, unless it’s your own.

But the joke is on all of you, yes I have been dating, but I can truly say that I have not had any “bad dates.” Now the women may disagree, but for me, it’s all good.  Besides, there is no better way to not get a second date than to publicly blog about each and every woman. I may be new to dating, but I ain’t stupid.  Still, despite dating charming women, if you read my Jackson Hole mountain biking post, you will know that danger seems to find me whether I like it or not. 

So yes, I have a story to tell involving a date, a hike, a lovely and yet extremely tough woman, and a moose, and another moose… oh, how about one more moose……. and another………… ah heck let’s throw in one more moose for good measure.  As you may guess, my date and I had a close encounter with a gaggle of Mooses.  Now as I sit here writing this blog post and try to comprehend the Night of the Living Moose, I thought I would do some background research to give some context to what we encountered. As I recount the night’s events, I will include some Mutual of Omaha commentary on the behavior of moose, which is both a singular and a plural. This commentary is best read in your own head with a slight erudite British accent, but a nice redneck accent will do the trick as well.

Our story begins with two old high school friends. Jaime Rasmussen playing the role of the awesome, fearless heroine and I shall play the role of not so humble blogger.  Both finding ourselves single again, we thought it would be fun to get together. Now Jamie is an avid hiker and I am always interested in finding a new way to end up in the hospital for the purposes of obtaining new blog material, so a hike date made sense.  We chose an easy 2 mile hike to a waterfall in Alpine Utah and with my kidney bleeding merely a few weeks ago this short hike was perfect.   Heavy rain was in the forecast, but we both agreed we were doing this hike come hades or high water (there was no mention of moose at this point), so date one was a go. 

And like most good stories, things started out perfectly.  We hit the trail at 6:30 PM. The scenery was beautiful, we had loads to talk about, and lots of laughs.  We found a great vista of the waterfall, but struggled to actually find the waterfall up close.  No biggie.  We were 2 miles up the canyon and the sun had just set, so we had little light left. We both agreed we should turn back. And really, why should things get interesting until you have gone as far as you planned to go into the woods?

We didn’t make it far before the old Hansen luck reared its ugly head.  Standing there in the middle of the trail was a mama moose…baby in tow.  Now I am not a moose expert.  I have minimal experiences with moose in fact, but I have been acquainted with several mothers and their children and was quite certain that approaching this duo was a bad idea. Jaime and I conferred quietly and we promptly backed up the trail to hide behind a tree.  A moose expert would have known:

Cows with young calves are very protective and will attack humans who come too close, especially if they come between mother and calf. Unlike other dangerous animals, moose are not territorial, and do not view humans as food, and will therefore usually not pursue humans if they simply run away.

We nailed it perfectly with the Monty Python-esque “Run away!” It was almost as if we were moose experts. I was already quite certain that the moose did not see me as food, not too many carnivorous moose out there, but I had no idea a mama moose was called a cow. In general, I’ve been trained not to call any mamas “cows.” (yet even with such wisdom, strangely if I myself divorced).  

So there we were, cowering behind a tree watching a mama and baby moose who obviously had no intention of getting off our trail. As I sat there wondering how long the mom and baby could be there, or more to the point how long WE would be there, fate (or moose) made the point moot by a rushing sound moving through the trees towards us from our left flank.  This is a good time for a Mutual of Omaha moment:

During the fall mating season, bull moose may be aggressive toward humans because of the high hormone levels they experience.

I’m sure Jaime was warned prior to the date to watch out for males with high hormone levels. She was just not warned of the correct species to watch out for.  Now at the time, neither of us were aware that this was 1) moose mating season or 2) a reason for higher level of aggression in a male moose or 3) that a male moose was called a “bull,” unless immediately followed by a “Winkle”.  But what we did appreciate was that a mammal twice the size a Smart car was barreling though the woods right at us. Cue a Monty Python “Run away!” again and off we went hurdling into the woods perpendicular to the trail on which we were supposed to be traveling.

Now I took off into the woods at a pretty good clip.  Appreciating that I should at least return with as many women as I brought (coming home with more at least gives you street credit with the dudes, but never fewer), I checked back to see how Jaime was doing. She was right on my heels. Tough gal. We ran, stopped, listened and we heard… INCOMING MOOSE! Run, stop, listen, run again. This repeated several times as this apparently hormoned-up moose pursued us deeper and deeper downhill into the woods and further and further from the trail.

Several hundred yards into our retreat we approached a steep ravine that dropped off into a river, we ducked behind another tree, like the stealthy mountain ninjas we were trying to be.  With the moose standing guard a mere 30 feet away, we conferred on our next move.  Now admittedly, we were both a little nervous at this point and we hadn’t even yet read the Wikipedia article about the turned-on aggressive mating moose season - it sure was not discussed in the dating portion of the For Strength of Youth pamphlet.  This was the point where our years of church attending kicked in and as we huddled behind this tree in a Mexican standoff with the moose (whom I guess is not Mexican), we decided we should say a prayer. While I am sure this could be weaved into a nice Sunday sermon, still any date in which you and your companion must get on your knees and beseech the Almighty for safety is not going well by anyone’s measure. Nevertheless, we knelt down and offered a quick “Father who art above, save us from these moose who art below” prayer. 

Also believing that “faith without works is dead” and that God helps those who help themselves, we took off running again, this time parallel to the trail and parallel to the sharp drop off to the ravine and river.  As we plunged deeper into the woods, it was nearly pitch black at this point. We could make out the silhouettes of trees and underbrush and I lead us through the areas with the least amount of black which were the thinner areas of underbrush.  It had threatened rain most of the hike. It had finally stopped threatening and went into full on assault mode.  So there we were on a first date. Running from moose in the pitch black in the pouring rain with a guy who was peeing blood just a couple of short weeks ago leading the way.  I really should offer a disclaimer on dates.  I kept checking back on Jaime, but as I reach back to help her over the obstacles, she was already over it before my hand could even get there.  No dead weight on this adventure.  She was cool as a cucumber.

It was pitch black now and we had one flashlight that was straight out of every cliché horror movie that kept flickering out at the most inopportune time. It was also about half the size of a baseball bat, which would’ve been helpful in fighting off most mammals. But unless a flipping plasma sword shot out the front of that sucker, it would have done no good against the moose.

We had run sometime along the edge this ravine and figured we had successfully skirted our moose problem. So after consulting the hiking app on my iPhone which had been tracking our progress the entire hike, we turned uphill to where the trail should be. Cue narration:

Like any wild animal, moose are unpredictable and should be given a respectful amount of space. They are most likely to attack if annoyed or harassed, or if their "personal space" has been encroached upon. A moose that has been harassed may vent its anger on anyone in the vicinity, and they often do not make distinctions between their tormentors and innocent passers-by.

[Open Scene, Exterior Mountains: A handsome couple finds itself in a 4th moose’s personal space] We had not gone more than 20 feet up the mountain when the dark mass in front of us was revealed to be a moose.  Really Mr. Moose, we wanted nothing more than to get out of your personal space.  Believe us.  Moreover, we are truly innocent passers-by. We even said a prayer on the date. How much more innocent can you get? Yet true to the moose expert above, this huge son-of-a-moose (as most male moose are prone to be) could not distinguish between tormentor or innocent bystanders.  Off we ran in survival mode in our own moose version of the Hunger Games.

By now, my legs were shaking pretty good. I was not sure if it was fear, adrenaline, or residual effects of prior internal bleeding, but I know I was nervous.  The lovely Jaime was too she claimed, didn’t show it though.  So we conferred and both agreed to keep following the edge of the ravine down the canyon. We continually consulted the phone and found were no closer to the trail. In fact, we were long gone. These are the times in which you wish your life had a Control-Z button where you can undo several choices that you really should not have made in the first place. Yet there we were stuck. We had to keep moving because, even though we did not know this:

Moose are fully capable of killing bears and wolves.

Holy crap!  Really?!?  Yes, moving is a good idea. Staying put and dying, not as good. So like Forrest Gump, we ran!  Moving along the edge of the ravine down the canyon through the thick underbrush at a snail’s pace… in the pitch dark… in the pouring rain…… with a faltering flashlight… on our first date.  And then we hit it; a SECOND ravine right in front of us which intercepted the ravine we were following.  The other side of this ravine (the side we needed to go over) featured a 20 foot cliff we would need to scale. So after consulting each other (if I am going to die by moose, I am going to do it by committee), we opted to follow this new ravine up the mountain in the direction of the trail.

I know the music you should play when a shark is approaching, but there has to be a moose theme out there somewhere I can play at this point. We had not gone 20 feet when I noticed a large dark mass right in front of us. Turning on the “dead-coed-in-a-horror-movie” flashlight, we were in someone’s personal space again!  And this guy went from laying to standing pretty quickly. Hello moose number five, I shall call you George and hug you, and kiss you and love you… [cue Mutual of Omaha theme music]… 

Moose are very limber animals with highly flexible joints and sharp, pointed hooves, and are capable of kicking with both front and back legs. Unlike other large, hooved mammals, such as horses, moose can kick in all directions including sideways. Therefore, there is no safe side from which to approach.

Seriously? Moose are like ninjas? Great, we’ve just approached the moose equivalent of Daniel Larusso in the Crane pose.  That answers that question - down the first ravine that we had been following!  The ravine was crawl-down steep and the river was nearly impassable.  In fact, it WAS impassible.  Abort!  Back up the sleep ravine we just descended.  The faltering flashlight also left me with only one hand by which I pulled myself back up the wall of the ravine by tree roots and small saplings.  Jaime, bless her heart, crawled her way up right behind in full blackness because I had the flashlight shining ahead as we reentered this Hill of Moose Hell.

At this point, Jaime and I are both thoroughly soaked all the way through and decided just to walk up the middle of this river in the second ravine. We slipped and slided slowly up the mountain by grasping whatever anchored fauna we could grasp.  My phone plotted our course up this ravine - below.  Not pretty and about as straight as a San Francisco Pride Parade.

After fighting the worst terrain of the great escape, we reached the spot where the cliff on the opposing side was only 7 feet high.  As we attempted to get to the edge of this wall, however, each step forward was met with an equal number of steps back. This sucker was slick. So we hiked up the ravine a bit further and traversed sideways. Now I was not sure if it was gentlemanly to send Jaime over the wall first, because there could’ve been a moose there, nevertheless I did. There was admittedly a little bottom touching as I helped her over the edge.  With a date like this, this was the only action I would be getting.  Throwing my battle-ax sized flashlight over the edge I managed to pull myself up top by some tree branches and help from my date. As I picked up the flashlight Jaime let out an excited sound. Expecting a moose, she uttered those beautiful words “the trail!”  

The trail that we had left nearly 60 minutes ago was now under our feet again, albeit 2 miles long and soaking slippery wet. We held each others wet numb hand to catch each other as we tumbled down the trail.  A half-hour later and no moose in sight I let out my own excited cry, alarming Jaime, at the sight of my truck.  We made it!  I checked my phone's plot of our route and zoomed in on our diversion from the main trail.  This is what is looked like, the moose were added after the fact - there is no moose encounter app that I am presently aware of. 

What better way to celebrate being alive on a first date then to to strip, right?  We both brought a change of clothes and I gave both Jaime and the moose a respectable balance distance from the truck to give her privacy to change, but stayed close enough that I could jump in the truck before the moose got me. And if so, Jaime was wearing whatever she did or did not have on. Fortunately for Jaime, no moose came. I followed suit and changed out of my wet clothes at a distance in the dark.  So we did end up in the buff on the first date, just not within sight of each other and not at the same time. Now I didn’t realize until later later that I had somehow bumped the camera on my iPhone onto video as and hit record as we were both changing… and then promptly slid it into my jacket pocket on the back seat. So I have a nice audio recording of my date changing clothes. I was later informed that audio of a couple changing clothes is really not what most guys are interested in. Good to note. I did get a nice screen grab of the video:

So dry and safe, we headed down into civilization to get drive-thru since all the restaurants were closed by now, but had survived an epic first date.  Though I’m still new at this, I do think it is generally frowned on to nearly kill your date by moose. Nearly killing someone on a date wasn't a first for me. I had previously nearly killed my date's child along with a couple of my own during a nearly disastrous joint family trip down the Provo River. Which, now that I think of it, had its own moose encounter in the middle of the river (yes Steffan, you were right, these suckers are dangerous.  I stand corrected and better informed).  And if you count my mountain biking incident with Broke Back Rodney, who played the role of life partner during that trip nicely, I nearly killed myself on a "date" too.  I had heard dating was tough, and I really had no idea.

So what are my conclusions from this date? If you see a moose while hiking… RUN!

What are your conclusions prospective dates? If I ask you on an outdoor adventure date… RUN!