Elements of Stoopid

Occasionally one may remember an incident from the past that is looked upon as well, stooopid and lucky to be lived through. I was reading the comments on this  this post and it triggered a memory from not quite my youth. I was living in northern

California in a part of the state where they carry guns and have turkey shoots, and went to visit a friend who had just purchased five gold mines and was beginning to work them. He had been in four of them so far and had two up and working.

The mines were/are just east of Happy Camp up in the mountains. His cabin had no electricity or running water. It was by all accounts a pretty rustic and peaceful place except for the drug dealers up the road. Ken decided he wanted to check out mine number five and asked if I would like to go along. I said sure and he grabbed a couple of flashlights and his British .303. Ken didn’t want any hassle with a drug dealer if we ran into one.

Up the mountain we trudged about three miles. When we got to the entrance of the mine we ate lunch and looked about. We both noticed there were bear tracks leading into and out of the mine. Not being a tracker we could not tell of the tracks were old or new. The entrance to the mine was about three feet in diameter and had at one point had a locking door over the hole. Ken had no idea who had removed the door or how long the mine had been open. The crawlway looked to be about 30 feet long and we could just make out the mine chamber expanding past that point. The previous owner said he had sealed the mine that way to make it safer. He had assured Ken that there was a much larger chamber beyond.

Ken asked me if I wanted to go first and I said sure.  He handed me the .303 rifle and I started crawling into the mine on my hands and knees moving the rifle on the ground ahead of me. Why is it that we were able to land a man on the moon but at the time couldn’t make a flashlight worth a damn? As I neared the end of the crawlway with Ken right behind me I suddenly got a huge whiff of something really foul. My flashlight had dimmed and flickered to the point I could see nothing in the chamber. As I continued forward I could her a low growl coming from around the corner. It was a bear and it was about three feet from me huffing and puffing and growling. At the time I did not want to kill the poor bear after all he/she had just found a nice cozy place to sleep. I told ken it was probably not wise to continue into the mine. As I was saying this the growling seemed to be getting closer.

I grabbed the .303 rifle and aimed into the mine wall about ten feet in front of me and fired. When we go to the guns club we try to get a lane in the middle away from the concrete wall as the concrete tends to magnify the concussion of the weapons. When I fired off the .303 I was thinking that it would probably frighten the bear and give us time to get out before being attacked. We would be fine and the bear would be fine except…

What I had not counted on was the concussive effect the blast would have in such a confined space. Immediately after I fired I became instantly blind as the concussion of the blast caused dirt to fly from every direction. I could literally not see my hand in front of my face. Which didn’t matter much because I couldn’t breath or hear anything either. I felt like I had been inside the breech when the round was fired.

I started moving backward hoping Ken was doing the same, which it turns out he was. When we got outside the mine nothing was said until we had cleaned ourselves off back at his cabin. Neither of us could hear a damn thing anyway for several hours.

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