What's the most exciting outdoor activity you have ever done?

Golfing on the moon.

 

We all know that was just a sound stage.

 

Lunch.

I'm really more of an indoor person.

 

Wait--I just thought of something else. I once, literally, shot the nuts off a moose. It was the freakiest accident ever. I kept missing the goddamned thing (I'm really not very good with a rifle, although I'm an ace with a shotgun). And then bam, right in the nads.

Seriously troubling day.

I also got lost in some central Idaho backwoods for half a day. Didn't know where the hell I was except that I was about 50 miles from the nearest telephone. I was about 16. One of our horses had got loose at camp while elk hunting and I tried to chase it down on foot. I took a shortcut on the trail and the next thing I know I was completely spun around. I was in a t-shirt, jeans and boots, and I knew it was going to get down to around 25 that night. No matches, knife, gun, nothing. Utterly terrifying.

I'll never forget how relieved I was to finally stumble into camp. And how annoyed I was that my brother and my dad hadn't even begun to look for me. Fuckers.

 

I feel really sorry for the moose... I hope you put him out of his misery. I can't imagine bleeding to death from that. Also that sounds terrifying, being lost in the woods in Idaho. I would have tried to make a huge freaking fire when it started getting dark.

Also, rock climbing is pretty fun.

 

oh wait. vegas pool parties. that is the shit. so fucking wild.

 

You think he had enough strength left to do much?

 

skating, back when i used to...i didnt do anything crazy but some of the stuff i did was really exciting

 

...hitting a hole-in-one!!!

 

I took the moose's nuts out on shot #2. It was crazy how unlikely it was.

I took the moose out (shot through the lung) on shot #17.

There was a lot of anguish on my part and his between #2 and #17. I hit everything on the god damn mountain except the moose. It was pathetic. There were 6 other hunters and my dad watching at the time. The most humiliating moment of my life.

I like to think it hurt me more than it hurt him, but I don't think that is so.

 

In the 1980's I was teaching at a hockey camp in Santa Cruz California. While there I attended a concert in San Francisco called the concert on the glen or green or something like that.....Anywho, The Ramones, The Police, Cheap Trick and Oingo Boingo were all there. It so happened that one of the bigwigs running the thing had his kid at the camp and he introduced me to the bands. Rick Nielsen actually asked me if I played, and I said yes, but just for fun. Then during their set he asked me to come up on stage from backstage and play. LOL I sucked, but I got to sing a line or two on Surrender in front of a gazillion people.

To this day I have every person's autograph that was onstage that day.

 

Mook... how they hell do you miss a moose? Lol... I stumbled accross quite a few in Alaska... and it ain't like they are spry or anything. I could have ran up and stabbed em with a knife if I was so inclinded. Stoned 'em to death maybe. Maybe they move faster during hunting season... I don't know.

 

pix or it didn't happen

 

i REALLY doubt you could stone a moose to death. I'm pretty sure that moose would be bruised and charge you and kick the S out of you!

 

Well, as it happens the year before my dad drew a bighorn sheep permit. It was on the Lost River Range, which features the highest peak in Idaho (Mt Borah). Anyway, I completely wore out a brand new pair of Danner boots over the course of two months trying to help him shoot a sheep. On the second to last day, he had a shot and missed. Dad's a crack shot, so we were both surprised, even though it was about 300 yards. (I suspect it was because I bumped his rifle scope the day before against some rocks. I never mentioned it.)

Anyway, he asked me if I wanted to apply for a sheep permit the next year. I thought, "Fuck that. Let's do something easy." I said, "How about a moose?" I'd always seen them in valleys being just about as stupid as you describe. I thought we'd be out for a morning, I'd shoot my moose, and be back in my own warm bed within a few days.

Heh.

Turns out that the moose who are that dumb get killed pretty quickly. I spent about three weeks on horseback going all over eastern Idaho. I finally run into some bow hunters (for deer) who said they'd spotted the biggest moose they'd ever seen in Idaho on a ridge on the top of some goddamn mountain, and their friends were up there watching it. I get a nice crossing shot at about 230 to 250 yards, not easy but not impossible. The rest is history. Shameful, shameful history. I killed the second biggest moose shot in Idaho that year, or so my dad told me. (The last time we ever spoke of the event.) Kind of a big deal, given that you only get to shoot one moose in Idaho in your lifetime.

Anyway, the next year I was deer hunting in the same area and I see these ears wiggling on the top of a ridge. I sneak up, thinking it might have been a deer. I get in this clearing, I don't seem anything. Suddenly I hear this loud, spine chattering cough. I whip around expecting to see Larry the Cable guy or something, and it's a fucking moose about 15 yards away. We just stand and stare at each other for probably five minutes. I finally get bored, turn around and start hiking down the ridge.

25 minutes later I flush out some deer and chase them down the ridge hoping to get a shot. I'm running really hard, just hoping for a clearing, but I get to a spot where I realize it's hopeless. They're gone. But I hear the same damned cough behind me! The fucking moose had stalked me down the hill, even after all my running. He just stared at me, again only about 15 yards away. I don't know why. I still wonder. I was pretty close to the main road at that point, so I dropped down and picked it up, and soon my dad found me and I got in the Suburban.

But christ was that one spooky moose. I'm not superstitious, but I still wonder about him. Did I shoot the nuts off his cousin? I dunno.

 

climbing this thing [Eureka Peak]



One time in Northern California I was walking on a trail and as I went around a corner I saw a cougar standing in the middle of the trail. I was scared shitless so I prayed the thing didn't see me and I booked it (I have never run so fast in my life). I swear the bastard was stalking me that entire day on the trails until we went home...

 

psssh...I have TWO!

 

Jumping off of cliffs. Into water of course.

Before I had kids I wanted to base jump. Probably ain't happenin now.