Document text
Prime Times Weekly publication of the Mail Tribune , Medford, Oregon He's Wild At Heart Outdoorsman Ernest Wilkinson is a living legend in Colorado By DEB ACORD The Associated Press MONTE VISTA, Colo. -- Ernest Wilkinson picks up his hat, turns it around in his scratched and battered hands and sets it on his head. It's an ancient hat, rolled and stained and of a shape and color not even distantly related to how it looked when it was new. But that's what's good about it. "I have a shield from the sun, a canteen and something to fan the fire with, all right here," he says. "It's just what I need.'' Wilkinson, 74, is an expert at knowing just what he needs and making use of all that he has. A true mountain man, he has spent his life roaming the mountains near his hometown of Monte Vista, first as a trapper and then as a backpacking and wilderness guide. Along the way, he learned taxidermy, wrote a book, married and had four sons, and -- did he mention? -- killed one of Colorado's last grizzlies. That's what still gives Wilkinson's life a degree of notoriety: He is the sole remaining federal trapper who legally killed a grizzly in Colorado. That's why people still seek out his cluttered taxidermy and crafts shop at the edge of town. That, and his stories -- about the mountain lions and badgers he raised in the back yard, about how he can survive camping in the high-mountain winters without a tent. Scouring the inner reaches of the Weminuche and La Garita wildernesses, and the San Juan and Sangre de Cristo mountains, Wilkinson has learned enough to fill a thousand guidebooks. And whoever stops by his home, be it to visit or do business, no doubt will come away with a piece of that knowledge -- or at least a darned good tale. Wilkinson's past reads like a chapter out of a Wild West novel. On the road to his now-famous grizzly kill, he became a skilled and sought-after trapper. He started trapping for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service upon returning from military service after World War II. "I got a permit to trap bears and coyotes, and I started living out of a pack saddle," Wilkinson says. "It was a great life." He would roam the mountains for weeks on horseback, meeting up with shepherds and ranchers whose livestock was being attacked by bears or coyotes. And although he wasn't from a hunting family -- his father was a rancher -- he took to the life immediately. And his services were in high demand. He worked with more than 50 sheep camps, befriending shepherds, many of whom didn't speak much English and who spent weeks and months alone in the mountains. During his trapping career, Wilkinson says he killed hundreds of coyotes and more than two dozen bears. He's not particularly proud of his record, but he doesn't feel remorse, either. It was his job and he did it as expertly and humanely as possible. But it was a grizzly with a taste for sheep -- one of the state's last remaining grizzlies -- that firmly established him in the outdoor lore of Colorado. In the fall of 1951, high in the mountains at a place called Starvation Gulch in the Upper Rio Grande Valley, Wilkinson was called after a shepherd complained that a bear was taking sheep from a flock. He set a trap, and when he returned he found the bear dead in the trap. "I wasn't sure it was a grizzly at first. It was a big bear -- bigger than a black bear -- with long claws," he says. It would have made a great trophy, but by the time he returned to the trap, the bear carcass was stinking and bloated. So he took a paw and ears (used by licensed trappers to prove their kills) and headed home. He still has the paw, although it takes him a few moments of digging through a dusty cardboard box to find it. "I use it when I teach classes now to show the difference between a black bear and a grizzly," Wilkinson says. The last grizzly bear to be killed, or seen, in Colorado was shot by a hunter in 1979 in the San Luis Valley, though rumors of grizzlies living in the San Juans have surfaced in recent years. That Wilkinson teaches classes, has written a book, still writes a newspaper column and is in demand as a wilderness-survival expert sometimes surprises even him. He had to leave school after 10th grade, when his father was injured in an accident. "I had to quit and take over the ranch," he says. Ranching was in his blood but not in his heart. That, he says, belongs to the high meadows and canyons of the mountains. "You determine your destiny in the mountains. It's where you develop an inner awareness. That's something that a lot of people are missing today." What Wilkinson found within himself streamside somewhere in a forest was the ability to survive. He learned how to fish the web of creeks and streams; how to recognize and cook with wild carrots, edible wild mushrooms, roots and berries; how to locate spring sources for fresh water; how to start a fire "17 different ways without matches," and how to build a snow cave. He became so good at the latter that he wrote a book about it, "Snow Caves for Fun and Survival." His approach is simple. "How many rabbits have you seen sitting by a fire to keep warm?" he asks in the book's introduction. "It only makes sense. If you could sleep in a tent when it's 20 degrees below zero, or a snow cave, where you don't even need a sleeping bag inside, what would you choose?" In his 50 years in the mountains, Wilkinson has developed an encyclopedic knowledge of all things wild and developed his own strategy for living out of a backpack. He usually packs a small sleeping bag in a waterproof bag, food, rain gear and a tarp. Don't look for a tent, or a coffee pot, or a water filter in his pack when he heads out alone (although he takes a filter when he guides a group). Wilkinson uses a tarp for shelter, and his hat and a mountain spring as his water source. Time hasn't slowed him any. Wilkinson, a small, wiry man, likes to hike 10-15 miles a day when he is alone, and his pace -- sure-footed and swift -- is legendary. When he guides a group of folks unaccustomed to the altitude and effort of carrying backpacks, he slows down, covering three to five miles a day. "I stop a lot and point out edible plants, or tracks. It lets people catch their breath without making them feel like they're going too slow." Wilkinson embraces the role of teacher. He spends most of his time shepherding groups of backpackers through the San Juan Mountains and Weminuche and La Garita Wilderness Areas. He offers dozens of trips a year, and also teaches a Wilderness Skills Camp each summer near Monte Vista. When he's not out, he's working in his taxidermy shop. In the tidy front room, Wilkinson's wife, Margaret, and others sew leather clothing. The back room looks like something out of a Hollywood set -- heads and bodies of animals strewn about; one table covered with badger pelts; pre-formed shapes of animals leaning next to mounted creatures that look alive. In the center of the room, a dented file cabinet is stuffed with folders that tell the story of Wilkinson's life through newspaper articles and photographs taken by him or others. In what might seem like a contradiction to his life as a trapper and later a taxidermist, Wilkinson loves animals. In his newspaper column, which has run weekly for 31 years in the Monte Vista paper and other small publications, he has lamented what he thinks is the misguided release of Canadian lynx into southern Colorado. "I think it's wrong to take these animals from their natural habitat," he says. Reports that many of the relocated cats are starving to death are dancing around the real reason for their demise, Wilkinson says. "I think they are stressed and that stress eventually kills them." Like many hunters, he understands the delicate balance that must exist between man and animal, hunter and hunted. He hasn't seen a lion in the mountains for about 15 years, he says. "We're in danger of loving the wilderness and its creatures to death," Wilkinson says. One of the things he teaches the people he guides is to appreciate what they see. "I always thought that you shouldn't get greedy. Just take what you need." When he looks to the future, Wilkinson sees himself still bounding up mountainsides, still sleeping on the ground and under the stars. "You have to enjoy life. That's what I'm doing," he says, picking up his old hat. "And you gotta wear a hat." Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA