Hunting camp starts every year with archery antelope hunting. For the last seven years, I have worked for High Pine Outfitters as the cook. We have a few different hunting camp locations. This one, where we antelope hunt, is southeast of Gillette, WY. This camp is the most remote, with no electricity other than the generator and it’s an hour drive into camp on a two track dirt road.
I left my house on Thursday morning and drove 4 hours to Gillette to meet Erick, the outfitter. We did our grocery shopping for the first hunt and then came to camp. Yesterday we got camp ready and then drove back to Gillette to meet our first hunter.
An antelope hunt is a 3-day hunt. Because we don’t have electricity at camp, everything runs off of propane. We have a generator to run the lights (and Starlink – the most important thing!) in the mornings and evenings. I don’t know if you know this, but a propane refrigerator is a hard thing to find and the one we have is slightly larger than a dorm fridge and WAY smaller than a standard fridge. Buying food for 4 days and keeping it in a fridge that’s smaller than some coolers is a bit of a challenge. Plus, the dumb thing is hard to regulate. It either freezes my milk and lettuce or nothing is cold. As it is, it takes more than 24 hours to freeze a bottle of water.
But the scenery makes it worth the hassle. I’ll put up with the flies and the heat and the dust for the gorgeous views.
This morning, I’m having electrical issues. I don’t know if the GFCI in the kitchen is bad or if the mice (oh yeah, I forgot to mention the mice!) chewed through some wiring in the walls, but none of my kitchen outlets are working. I’ve reset the breakers in the electrical box and on the generator to no avail. I’ll have to have the boss take a look at things when he gets back later this morning. So, for now, I’m running an extension cord to the router and the coffee pot is in the bathroom. A girls gotta do whatever she can to make shit work!
Next week, we head to a different camp for archery elk hunting. There’s electricity there and a gravel road all the way to the hunting lodge. I’ll get spoiled! I’ll give you an update from there.
Stephanie
