By: Bears Butt
Team 3!
At rendezvous this past weekend we had the pleasure to sign up to participate in what Muskrat has coined the “Mountain Man Lympics”. $5 p/person sign up, 4 person teams to be chosen at random and then the teams had to make up their strategies. All proceeds go to helping veterans in some fashion and of course a small portion goes to the winning team.
Going into the games, we knew we had to set a trap, start a fire using primitive methods, shoot a bow, throw a tomahawk and toss a frying pan for accuracy.
All methodical and strategic events. What we didn’t know were the small details of each of the events and so comes our strategies.
Team 3 was made up of Tara and Natalie (the two younguns), Reed and myself (the two old farts). Tara was off doing something very important when Natalie, Reed and I finally got together to begin our strategies.
We decided that with the fire starting there would be the need to pop a kernel of popcorn out of a frying pan. But, in order to pop that corn quickly, we would have to have a small type of pan. Our minds worked quickly and came up with the bottom of a soda can as the pan of choice.
Never mind the fuzzy pictures, as some of the details have been withheld to protect our unpatented ideas.
Once the pan’s basic shape and depth was designed, a handle was fashioned out of good old mountain man expertise and will not be divulged in this write up.
More to the design was also crafted to give us the best of the best of advantages and again, will not be disclosed here.
We discussed all of the possibilities we could think of and came up with what we thought would be the best plan for acquiring a quickly built fire, fire intensity and popcorn popping capabilities. You see the popcorn kernel has to clear the pan in order to count. That means it has to come cleanly out of the pan to count.
The other skills were pretty much in the bag for this team as we all consider ourselves experts in the diverse mountain man/women world of survival. We had a lot riding on our abilities both individually and as a team.
This is Team 3, you can clearly see my rear end on the far left, then Reeds rear end, Natalie and then Tara. A team to be reckoned with.
When the call came for the beginning of the Lympics, we stood ready to whatever task the Lympic master threw our way. We were called to the Lympic Archery range!
Skilled archers take their task very seriously and so we as Team 3 did also! And the results are recorded in this professionally taken picture. It clearly shows 3 out of 4 hits and if memory serves me correctly the fourth shot had a clear passthrough with out being recorded.
Next was the tomahawk throw. Each member was afforded ONE chance to throw a tomahawk and stick it in a log. The log had painted rings with which to score. Closest to the center of the log scored higher than any other stick in the log. When our turn was over, three hawks stuck clearly for all to see, with several very close to the center of the log.
(sorry no picture taken, as the professional following our team was still awestruck by our archery performance).
Soon after our display of hawk throwing abilities we were called to the “Frying Pan Toss for Accuracy” venue. Bears Butt chose to be last of the four and so the tosses were made. All three of the “before Bears Butt” tosses landed and stuck in true Lympic style and the officials measuring the tosses had a very easy job of counting their fingers and toes to come up with the total. However, they had to add up all their fingers and toes with my toss to come up with the grand total for the Team 3 tosses. In true Lympic style Team 3 did an awesome job!
And now it’s on to the Lympic Pool for the next event!
Aside from the pool being so large and deep, there lurks in the depth of the black water, critters of unknown origin. If you look very closely you can see just the top of the jaws of a number 3 double long spring trap. The darkness of the water makes this a very dangerous event for the contestants.
With this event all four members of the team play an important part. First off, time begins as soon as team member one jumps into the pool. That contestant will then proceed to set the trap as quickly as they can, trying at all costs to keep fingers and other parts of the body from getting caught up in the jaws, springs or other assembly of the trap itself. Once set the trap is then placed deep into the murky water of the pool and that contestant jumps out of the pool. As soon as team member one’s feet hit the dirt outside the pool, team member two jumps into the murky water, trying to avoid the set trap with body parts. They jamb a stick into the jaws setting the trap off and capturing the stick. That contestant then jumps out of the water with the trap held quickly in the jaws, and hands the stick, trap and all to team member number 3. That team member then runs the gauntlet and places the ring of the trap chain onto a waiting stake driven into the ground. Team member number 4 is waiting to remove the trap ring from the stake, pick it all up and return to the depths of the murky pool water, into which they jump with trap and all and remove the stick from the jaws of the trap and then jump out of the pool. Once team member number 4’s feet hit the ground outside the pool the team’s time is recorded.
WOW! What an event! Team 3 did all of this in less than one minute! A time to beat in future held Lympics for sure and it will probably be this teams all time record for many Mountain Man Lympics to come.
Lastly, Team 3 had to go to the fire pit for the big event of starting a fire using primitive methods. Be that method flint and steel, magnifying glass, bow and stick…however that team chooses. Our team chose the magnifying glass method.
We had carefully gathered some of the finest fire making materials to be found anywhere near the rendezv0us site and made a nest of the most flammable of it all. Our methodology can be found on www.bearsbutt.com and we followed that method almost exactly under survival pursuits. The fire lite quickly, and burned hotter than any previous fire had burned at this Lympics.
With flames licking our eyebrows, the oil in our well designed pan began to boil almost immediately and the popcorn kernel popped out of the pan within less than 1 minute and 15 seconds (if memory serves me).
As the days events drew to an end, it was clearly a hands down call that Team 3 had won the entire Lympics events and was crowned victors for another year!
GO TEAM 3!!!!!!!
Thank you Lympics Master Muskrat for pulling off such a spectacular event. Like none other in all of the rendezvous land it was something special to behold and we look forward to next years event! Will the same members of Team 3 be pulled to become one again? I doubt it! But until then TEAM 3! TEAM 3! TEAM 3!!!!
Bears Butt
Sept. 5, 2012
Utah Fishing Reports
