I sat in my saddle on old Francis, looked down between his long ears at the men, horses and mules lined up for the trip down the trail. It was something that I had never seen and I was indeed thrilled. The mules with their heavy burdens, the hunters dressed in their hunting clothes.

            Having sold my cafe and retired I had been enjoying leisure for three years and when offered the job of cooking at a Hunting Lodge in the wilderness area, I jumped at the chance.

            I had lived in Idaho for forty years, but raising a family had deprived me of the opportunity to see and take part in this kind of affair.

            I had traveled from Twin Falls, Idaho to Grangeville by car to Kooskia, Idaho, then up the North Fork of the Clearwater River and Selway River to Selway Falls. Then up the mountain 12 miles to the end of the car road to within 500 feet of the top of Fog Mountain where the Headquarters camp was located.

            After two days delay, we were about ready to take off for the Meadows, where the Deluxe Camp was located.

            Everyone was taking pictures, either slides or movies. Finally the train of mules and horses started to move, but before all was under way one horse stepped over a lead rope and the mixup was on. Two animals went over the trail, rolled a few times and lost their packs. They were picked up and repacked with a delay of about an hour.

            The second start was a success and the train of forty horses and mules moved down the trail. No vehicles were allowed beyond this point. The trail became narrower, rougher, deep mud holes and roots and shrubbery. At times the mud was so deep your feet would almost drag in the mud, but the mules with their heavy packs moved on picking out what they thought to be the safest place to travel. Some of the bridges across small ravines consisted of two logs laid side by side with a crack between them of three to five inches, but old Francis looked them over carefully and walked them without any trouble. The train was held up at times while logs were cleared from the trails where trees had fallen. A power saw was carried for this purpose. The boss came back and assured me that we would be at the Meadows in a couple of hours. That was intended to cheer me up, but I had already been on the mule six hours and that was a long time for a man of my age to set in a saddle, when he was not accustomed to riding.

            At sundown we arrived at the Meadows. The camp consisted of four tents and a corral for the horses. The cook tent was stretched over poles, had a dirt floor, one table, sheep camp stove and blocks of logs for chairs. The scenery was the finest, a little meadow of five acres, walled in on all sides by high mountins. This was the only level spot we had seen on the fifteen mile ride. A 500 ft. waterfall behind the tent made a continuous roar as the water fell over the rocks. A clear cold mountain stream ran close by filled with mountain trout.

            Everybody was starved having only eaten a sandwich that I had prepared before leaving camp. I found some meat balls and spagetti and prepared enough for thirty men although we had only seventeen, and called for them to come and get it and they done just that.

            The hunting party consisted of three Texans who had grown a beard about a foot long. They were expert horsemen and their knowledge was very helpful. Three gentlemen from Michigan that had done lots of hunting all over the United States and two men from California who knew the ways of camp life, the packers and the guides.

            The first day out they killed an Elk, the second day another elk and a bear. We had plenty of meat. The deer and the elk livers were very good, but the bear meat was not relished by many. It furnished lots of laughs as they tried to chew it and the bite would be bigger and bigger the longer they chewed. One of the men killed a mountain goat but nobody wanted it cooked and I was glad of that.

            The party stayed six days, the guides took them out leaving me alone. One of the guides became lost on the way out due to snow and fog. Three days later he found his way out to the road.

            It rained and snowed continuously. The guides were supposed to bring another bunch of hunters in two days later but the snow was a foot deep and the hunters from Los Angeles did not think much of the idea. Nobody showed up to tell me what was wrong. The snow became so heavy that one of the tents collapsed in the night. I kept the snow off my tent with a stick of wood. The next morning I had the flu. I was quite sure it was my birthday. The coyotes howled at night and timber wolves were in abundance. Fresh meat had to be brought in the tent at night or it was carried off by the bears.

            At last the packer arrived and informed me that we were packing out. The snow was 18 inches deep. The next morning we were up early, ate breakfast and started packing the mules and horses. The packer was the kind that could not be hurried. I did my best to get him into action but he was in no hurry and at 1:00 p.m. I told him I was leaving, that I had done all I could for him and that I was turning him over to the Lord. I mounted the horse, took 5 of the pack mules and started out. I had considerable trouble with the packs coming off and the going was slow but I wanted to get over the worse before dark. I was riding Old Silver and he had been with the outfit for several years and I just tied the reins up on the saddle horn and left it to him to find the way. At times I could see no trail at all and I told the Lord that I knew I had made him lots of promises that I had not kept, but if he would get me out of there I would never come back. I got out and arrived at the Headquarter Camp at 9:00 p.m., wet, cold and hungry. The packer arrived an hour behind me on foot. He had lost his mules and his horse.

            The blizzard continued to get worse and the boss started getting panicky. He decided we should move down to the Selway River. Mules were packed and horses were saddled and we started at 8:00 p.m. The wind was blowing, snow drifting and the cold wind hitting us as we sat on the horses plowing through the snow drifts four or five feet deep.

            We arrived at Selway Falls which is not a town and we were so tired we unrolled our beds on the ground and went to sleep. It started to rain in the night, but I had a heavy tarp and selected high ground for my bed and fared well. The other men had water running into their beds. The boss hired a large cat to come out from Kooskia and plow the road out to the Headquarters Camp and we picked up the rest of the equipment and drove the horses and mules to Kooskia and put them in a pasture.

            The mule I was riding, Old Francis, fell over a cliff on the trail and was killed. I'm sure he is now in Mule Heaven for he was the nicest dispositioned mule I have ever seen.

            I arrived home at 4:30 a.m. and my wife would hardly let me in the house. I had camped out for two months without being inside a house, without sitting down in a chair or seeing a barber or a bath tub. I will long remember my experience as a cook on an elk hunting trip.

Fred Knapp, Evelyn Knapp Spaller & Minnie Knapp