WEEKEND HIGH

Defining the perfect man weekend is about as easy as landing the perfect date or riding a greased pig up a ladder. I am not claiming my adventure on the second weekend of May was perfect, but it was damn close.

The action started at 12:50 a.m. that Sunday.

I am rudely wakened by a voice yelling, “We’re late!” Groggy from trying to capture a few hours of sleep in a semi-busy parking lot, I am blinded by the headlamp of a climbing partner. We waste no time and in 20 minutes we are making frozen tracks toward the summit of Mount Hood.

The moon is full and the sky is a seamless black, the perfect backdrop for the angular lunar-lit peak. The air is cool and calm and it feels good in my lungs. I move fast and effortless and notice I’m alone when I turn to look back and my three climbing partners are out of sight.

The lights of Portland are sharp and orange, and the moon’s so bright, I haven’t had to turn on my headlamp. I meet another climber waiting for his partner. We make small talk while sulfur fumes sting our nostrils and a band of robin-egg blue light gathers on the horizon.

Reunited with my party, we make our way to the only technical section on the traditional route up the Palmer Glacier. Two of our climbers stay back to rope up for the climb, but Mark Steward and I solo the short balance moves and ascend into the sunrise as we reach the summit, 11,235 feet, the highest point in Oregon.

With light feet we descend but I am not fully satisfied because I have two unfilled turkey tags and the last day of Washington’s turkey hunting season is less than 24 hours away.

There’s a six-hour drive home and another small dose of sleep. I do my best at containing the urge to smash a blaring alarm against the wall at 2:30 a.m. less than 24 hours after climbing a volcano.

I am surviving on caffeine and the determination not to be skunked by a bird you can buy for $1.99 a pound at Albertson’s. Having hunted these feathered deli sandwiches for four weeks straight, I’m not about to give up.

At first light, I’m two hours north of Spokane when a tom rips out his love gobbles. I respond with the sweet temptations of purrs, clucks and soft yelps. I see him sail over my head as he flies from his roost and lands a hundred yards down the old logging road.

My calls do the trick on the lusty gobbler and it’s not long before the classic red-white head and long beard materialize around a blind corner.

At 4:58 a.m. — just 15 minutes into legal shooting time and almost 24 hours to the minute since I was standing on the summit of Mount Hood — I have the satisfying heft of my first Merriam’s gobbler (I am from Kentucky, and I have always hunted the Eastern subspecies) slung over my shoulder.

Ecstatic that I finally have my turkey, I think about the many ways I could prepare this tasty treasure as I drive back to Spokane. When I call The Spokesman-Review to apologize that I will be late to work I am told that I’d misread the schedule. Turns out, I’m off work!

Well all right then, there is still time to get the second of two turkeys you’re allowed to take in Eastern Washington during the spring season, which is now just eight hours from ending.

For $19.71 I purchase my second torture tag … errrr turkey tag and drive smiling into the 90-degree heat for more fun.

Soon I am parched, covered in sweat and cussing. This sucks. Suddenly there are no turkeys in these woods. What am I doing here? I am dressed head to toe in camouflage including gloves, hat and face mask in weather more suitable for skinny dipping. This is it, I think to myself. This tag will have to be filled in the fall.

I have two more hours of daylight, but I turn back and shuffle, head down, through the dust back to my truck.

I hiss as the leather truck seat burns my shirtless back and I lick at the sweet syrup on my lips from the 20 ounces of 250-degree diet Dr. Pepper I just inhaled. Yet I am strangely content with the exhaustion that comes with accomplishment. I call my dad in Kentucky and drive down the rutted-out logging road toward home.

In midconversation I stumble on the hasty words of “Gotta go!” as four gobblers run off the road, up a timbered slope and disappear.

In a flurry of flinging doors, fumbling shotgun shells and loading a gun I manage to dash into the head-high brush of a ski-hill steep clear-cut at my last chance for success. In a maddening, shirtless sprint over deadfall, saplings and all sorts of spiny weeds I come to staggering stop. My head is spinning as I pant with hands-on-knees exhaustion. I raise my head just in time to see a young tom as he sees me.

In a flash my second turkey tag is wrapped around his leg.

This is it, man. This is where it’s at, I think to myself. I spend the next hour trying to think about a weekend better than this one. I get lost swimming in the cherished memories we tend to neglect in our memories.

I don’t use the word “best” for this weekend for fear that it may be true and there will be nothing else to strive for.

The sun is setting and there are birds to be cleaned but there are still a few hours before this weekend ends and I think about what could make it better. It occurs to me what a close-to-perfect man weekend should end with. So I call this girl I know and she helps me finish one of my great man’s weekends in style.

We drink a couple beers – and pluck two turkeys.