JUN-B-9
THIS IS MY LAST ATTEMPT AT CONVEYING
A MESSAGE I HAVE ATTEMPTED TO SEND
FOUR TIMES AND IT HAS CRASHED TWO MACHINES
IN THE PROCESS, BUT I WILL HAVE ONE MORE GO
June 13, 2001
“DIABLO EX MAQUINA”
Why this message? I have diligently attempted to make a schedule for August avoiding conflict with commitments already in place, and talked with George Sevich on Monday night as I was packing top leave on this trip to San Antonio and Colorado/Wyoming for the Big Horn Ultra. I had tried to connect him with Scott Miller so that we could coordinate a plan for the August schedule, and I had completely typed up a three page message twice and incompletely once, using the remote access of my email account through my son’s home computer. After doing it completely, which took over an hour in the unabridged version, I had run the Spell Check, and the document went “Poof” when I pushed the “Send” button with no evidence in the” Sent Mail Box” that it had gone anywhere but into the ether from which I could not retrieve it.
On the second time through, I was almost done when the dogs came in and one licked my hand nosing around the keyboard when I looked up to see a blank screen---and with the demon possession manifest in these machines, I am not sure it was the dog, but perhaps the demon ex machina.
So, I retired to my laptop, since I had worked with it much of the morning during my visit here, and had typed the first third of the message, when the machine froze up and the cursor could not move—no save, no send no retrieve, and turning the machine off and rebooting it (getting this annoying little sign telling me to always “shut down” the computer—as though I could manipulate it all when the cursor is frozen and every Ctl/Alt/Del or Esc does not work to do anything at all—I started over now after taking the floppy drive out and replacing it with the CD player—to which the same gremlins responded. Having breakfasted on my hard-typed message, they lunched on the CD! Now, gingerly, here goes again, and this time I am tying it as a file which I can save as often as it can be done.
I am leaving on July 17 for a medical mission in Ladakh, and would ha returned on August 1. It has recently been extende3d for a week, since the Flying Doctors had promised a clinic in a remote village of Lingshed, an isolated spot on the Tibetan Plateau, accessible only by chartered helicopter. In order to avoid disappointment for the 500 patients who have been promised care, I said I would cover for them, which means I would not be returning to Delhi until August 6, which for starters means that I would have to separate around August 1 from Virginia who would be going back independently from Delhi and I might need to drop off the clinic gear in Delhi for the later arrival of my September medical mission which will head off into the Himachal Spiti Valley in the Chang Thang Plateau.
George has said that earlier in the season about the second week of August, would be the best of the big Kamchatka Big Horn sheep hunt, for which we would have hunter/scouts looking for them before our arrival and our camp would be a horse back ride in and then rigorous climb around the Siberian mountains where the best sheep had been spotted. Later in August the big brown bears get more numerous and frisky, so that the middle of the month, if we started a hunt around August 10 would have us straddling the best of both worlds. George ha lined up a hunter from Tucson who was eager to go, but had awaited the original plan to have me and my partner going at the primo locations with the best guides to do well on each species. The trip involves a long and costly chartered helicopter from Petropavlosk, and a six-hour vehicle ride through intriguing country, and a horse-packing ride in with good mobile camps in Kamchatka in the mountains. Now we will have to set dates to make it possible to accommodate three of us, and obligations on all sides.
If I returned from Delhi on August 6, I would be crossing two oceans from the far side of the world to arrive about two hours before taking the same flights in reverse to go back around to the same longitude, when already acclimatized to the time zones and altitude. It would make far more sense for me to fly up from Delhi to Moscow and intercept you as you come in from New York on the Round Trip to Kamchatka. I could then join you and we would go together across all of Russia on a single flight (longer than the trip from New York to Moscow, covering 11 time zones, and this is just a domestic Russian flight!) We would then hunt together and return to Moscow and New York, packing all our gear along as checked in through Moscow.
There is one additional bonus that is new since I spoke with you earlier and is a very big advantage that involves someone you already know. When we are ready to return with the trophies we would have had to pack along with us and clear through New York USF & G and Ag with the CITES permits, we would have to pack them along as additional luggage that would be charged an excess baggage fee and then we would have to see that the trophies got forwarded even after we got them in to the US. This time we will have access to Russell Knight taxidermy and trophy forwarding service. One of the outfitters folk goes with them EATWARD in to Anchorage and does all the clearing with all the permits and Russell Knight takes them from there to either forward them or to do the taxidermy in Alaska, and you were quite satisfied with his work and the speed at which it was conducted in getting your Dall Ram back to you before Christmas. This is done for a fee of something like $150 which is less than the excess luggage charges in the other westward direction.
There is one potential problem, however, and there is probably a good way around that also. The Russians are very Hunter-Friendly, as long as all the forms are filled out and the rules are adhered to exactly. One of the rules is that the visa is a hunter’s visa, which is essentially a visa for the serial number of the rifle, which must come in and go out through the same port. The hunter is an accompanying person for this registered rifle. I do not believe I could carry a rifle through India. What might be possible, as suggested by George and one of the reasons he is looking for you to get the dates synchronized, is that I might be able to come up to you in New York and visit, show the pictures of the Kamchatka wilderness from my experiences there last May (a wonderful wilderness!) and consolidate gear and make some final packing arrangements in early July. Then I could leave with you duffel of hunting gear and the cased rifle, and you could check both of them in from New York to Moscow. Since we would be traveling together from that point, you and I would have all our gear together and we would be leaving together from Moscow where the two rifles entered satisfying all the rules. If that works for you, we would be able to work out a rendezvous in Moscow, and be ready to go on to Kamchatka to hunt.
I have to work out the meshing of several schedules to see that this works, since I will be going back to the Himalayas in September and will probably have a backpack of my mountain gear in Delhi for later pickup. But if the hunting integration of two incoming schedules can be made to work out, then the rest of the trip is not only easy but also cheap since airfares in Russia are surpassingly inexpensive, especially coming in through Moscow on Delta connecting to Aeroflot. George Sevich has Ballard Travel make those fare connections with maritime seamen’s’ rates and when we know the dates those can be worked out. I will have to have the front end taken care of through India by the agent that is arranging the medical missions, but whichever the agent the flights from Moscow forward would be the same, and also unencumbered by the trophies.
I hope this can all be worked out and I will see if we can get together by phone after this all day effort at getting this message to you. I am visiting with my son and his wife on their 8th anniversary here in San Antonio, who will be having the twin sons at about the time I will be in Ladakh, and I will be eager to hear more about the time you are coming in from the stateside with the news. I am going forward from here to Dayton Wyoming to run the Big Horn Ultra along the Canyon that is the border of Montana and Wyoming—only 54.3 miles at 12,000 feet. If I survive this effort, I can be reached at Four Pines in Dayton Wyoming, returning through Boulder on Father’s Day, to return to Washington on Monday the 18th. If all of the details can be worked out with you, George, and the Himalayan Spirit which is the outfitter for my medical mission and their respective travel agents and other connections, we will b e able to sit together in early July and make some serious campfire kinds of plans as we prepare for the Adventure Hunt of a lifetime—if I still have enough of that life in me after the Ultras and other high mountain adventures between here and the Northern Siberian end of Kamchatka! You are going to love it!
Cheers!
GWG (The Himalayan Spirit attachment on these plans is also included.)