Every November in Virginia, as the weather starts to cool, camouflaged hunters start marauding through the haunts of us adventure racers. Sometimes they're in packs crammed into pick-up trucks, clearly intoxicated, and furious at us "no good bikers" for being on the gravel road . . . sometimes they're smiling solo marksmen hiking down the trail. I should add here that I have no philosophical problem with hunters; while I'm a vegetarian, I respect if somebody goes out and hunts for their dinner the way our species has for millenia. Not to get too far off topic, but hunting for your food seems a lot more natural to me than buying an antibiodic-filled chicken "nugget" that has been squished together by steel machinery, rinsed, bleached, and then doctored with colour and texture enhancements -- not to mention how it's shipped across the ocean and the true cost to the environment of the process isn't properly reflected in our pricing system. But I digress . . .
Where was I? Yes, the hunters. I've had very close calls with hunters in the Virginia woods. On one occasion Eric Cone and I were bushwhacking in Pocahontas State Forest to scout some orienteering options when a gunshot reverberated through the trees. It was close and it was loud! I immediately dropped to the ground and started backing towards the trail; Eric just kind of stood there with his mouth open, then his rusty self-preservation instincts kicked in and he followed my lead. We scrambled out of the woods and back to the dirt road, just in time to see a hunter dragging a freshly killed deer behind him. "Hello guys" said the hunter, oblivious to the fact that we could've been casualties of his friendly fire. Eric and I looked at eachother and vowed to pay closer attention to the hunting seasons from that point on.
In my experience, it's usually groups of hunters that are more menacing. And groups of drunk hunters are absolutely the worst. I won't go into detail, but I know to avoid certain regions between Charlottesville, VA and Raliegh, NC Mondays through Saturdays during hunting season.
With that as background, imagine my reaction when I was biking some rolling fire roads here in Switzerland and came upon a solitary "European Hunter." A "European Hunter" is different than an "American Hunter" in that:
-European Hunters aren't wearing camouflage, but instead look like Daniel Boone with weathered leather cowboy hats
-European Hunters have guns that look like muskets or antiques, not polished new hardware straight from the gun factory
-European Hunters don't mutter things like "you better be careful on that bike, boy" and "lots of guys with guns around here" the way several American Hunters have done to me. Granted: since my German is terrible the European Hunter could've been saying much worse but by the smile on his face I judged him as being relatively pleasant.
So, yes, I had an encounter with a European Hunter and it went very well. I continued my bike ride and was enjoying the Fall day. A few minutes later, I crested a large hill and saw several figures moving along the fringes of the forest; the figures were coming towards the fire road I was on and they all had guns and were all "European Hunters" by their appearance. This was a group, a big group, of European Hunters.
This proved too much for me.
Maybe I have some vague generational memory of German-speaking men with guns coming towards me through the forest? Maybe I had flashbacks to some of my unpleasant run-ins with groups of Virginia Hunters? Regardless, I wasn't going to push the envelope so I elected to turn around and call it a day.
Key take away: let the folks with the guns play during their short hunting season and go for a paddle or work on your rope skills instead!