I can remember when the opening weekend of hunting season was an event. It was the most anticipated date on the calendar for many young men and women in this area, with the possible exception of Christmas Day. Fall meant that we would be back in school, football season would start, the World Series was coming and hunting season was just around the corner.

Hunting season was different when I was a kid. There were various pre season hunts that took place, but they were not the important seasons to us. In many cases we were doing other things when they came around and we just didn't get too excited about them. However, the regular season opening day was a different story altogether.

The regular season was usually a two-week affair that put all of the hunters into the woods at the same time. We did not have to worry about choosing a season like we do today. There was not a list of choices as to when and where and how we wanted to hunt. Generally, we hunted deer and elk at the same time and that made things seem a lot simpler to young hunters.

Opening day was just the icing on the cake, the end result of a lot of planning and hard work. My dad and his hunting buddies would start several weeks prior to the season getting things ready. They always had a big camp at the head of Clear Creek in the Hermosa and there was no big wide Junction Creek road to take them there. The old road was a steep, rut filled, rocky, winding, spine altering, adventure when it was dry. When it was wet it got bad. That never stopped us from making several trips on the weekends prior to opening day hauling supplies, cutting wood, digging out the spring, and fixing corrals.

It seemed like it was still summer when we made the first trip in to camp. It was about a four-mile haul from the end of the road and the bright green aspens and dark green spruce made it a beautiful trip, regardless of how hard we were working. By the last trip the leaves had changed, fall had arrived, and the once bright green aspen leaves were now yellow, orange, and red. It was a magic time for a young hunter.

The week preceding opening day was the longest week of the year for me. Usually my dad and a couple of guys would go in on Thursday to finish setting up the camp, laying out bedrolls, putting the groceries away, and generally getting things ready for the rest of us who usually showed up after school or work on Friday night. This could be a very late trip for some of us, as Friday night football games became part of the equation, as we got older. Nearly all of the boys played sports growing up so we were all affected by the Friday night football schedule, but that never kept us from making the trip. Many times we made it in time to eat breakfast and head down the trail for the opening day hunt.

The hunting was, as it turned out, only a small part of the experience. Looking back on it now I realize that it was the people, the days and nights spent on the mountain in the comfort of those tent walls, the sunrises and the sunsets, the snow storms and water springs that had frozen that really made hunting season such a wonderful experience.

I am certain that times were simpler then and life was not such a race to get to wherever it is we are racing. For two weeks out of the year we were able to tune the world out and tune nature in. There were no cell phones then. We usually had a portable radio to listen to the news or important Durango football games and there were no neighbors. It was just our group and the occasional passerby who usually stopped for coffee or a bite to eat. The school board even saw fit to give us a couple of days off for hunting each fall, something that sure as heck doesn't happen in this day and age.

We have more elk now than we did back then, but I doubt that the experience is any better than it was. There is no going back, but I cannot help but reflect on the many wonderful experiences I had in those camps so many years ago.

(George Malarsie is a long-time Durango resident, outdoor enthusiast and freelance columnist for the Durango Herald.)