A Saturday in the wilderness....sort of....

I got up Saturday morning after a few hours of sleep with plans to go and retrieve an adult raccoon from PAWS for release back into the wild. This particular raccoon needed a ride to Black Diamond which is about an hour and a half drive without traffic or other issues. I had asked Kevin if the truck was available for the transport because I wasn’t overly excited about having an adult raccoon in my car for that period of time. The truck was available and Kevin had already placed the raccoon in its transport carrier in the back of the truck so he was ready to go when I arrived at PAWS. We joked about having good directions to the release site because I’ve been on a few adventures over the last few years where mapquest’s directions didn’t quite match up with the actual streets etc. This one seemed pretty straightforward and I took off with the map in hand and my GPS as a backup.

I got into “The Beast”, which is how I affectionately refer to the PAWS truck and headed down I-405 south towards Black Diamond. I hadn’t driven The Beast since last year and it took a few miles for us to get reacquainted. I glanced over and noticed that the drivers side mirror was wobbling in its housing like a newborn’s head with no neck muscles. It wasn’t that big of a deal because I still had two good mirrors and two good eyes. I also noticed that the front end was out of alignment and the truck wanted to pull to the right as I drove down the highway. That sort of thing isn’t noticeable when you are off-road with it in 4WD, but when you are driving on the highway; it’s quite noticeable. So, The Beast and I were trying to come to an understanding when it started to rain. For the piece of crap that it is, at least The Beast has intermittent wipers. I turned the wipers on and watched the water get smeared around on the windshield. OH, NICE! The wipers were borderline amazing with their smearing capabilities. This was going to be a long drive in these conditions.

I glanced over at the radio and turned it on because the driver’s compartment and the back were completely separated from one another. I have released many animals back into the wild and most of the time this involves long car rides in silence. Obviously you don’t play the stereo when you have a wild animal on board because it would worsen what is already a very stressful situation for the animal. Wild animals weren’t meant to ride in vehicles with the windows down and the radio on. They aren’t like your average Golden Retriever. It was nice that I could listen to something other than the rain and road noise on this ride. The raccoon was secured in his carrier in the back and the side windows on the cab were cracked to keep air circulating for him. While I knew he wasn’t happy and he certainly wasn’t enjoying the ride, I knew he would enjoy what was at the other end of this ride. Freedom. Apparently this raccoon had been hit by a car but had made a full recovery and was ready to return to the area where he had been found.

Traffic thickened up around Bellevue with the usual mix of Lexus SUV’s, BMW’s, and of course – Hummer’s. The wipers smeared the rain around on the windshield as I navigated The Beast through the heavy Saturday traffic. I was scanning the pre-programmed radio stations to see if there was anything worth listening to and found nothing that I would actually seek out. For some reason, it seemed appropriate that I wound up listening to Alanis Morrisette yodeling as I drove amongst the luxury SUV’s and BMW’s. As traffic began to lighten up once I got beyond Bellevue, I settled on a classic rock station that was playing “Home Sweet Home” by Aerosmith. It brought a smile and made me reflect back on the many release rides I’ve been on over the past five years or so. I’ve transported many different species to many different places with the same goal in mind, which is to release the animal back into the wild where it can live its life as was intended, with no fences, bars, or caging. They were doing a rock block and by the time I reached exit 12 on I-405, Steven Tyler was scowling, “back in the saddle again”. The raccoon and I were making pretty good time. Driving an ambulance and driving a wild animal to its release site have many similarities. Easy braking, gentle acceleration and cornering. Basically, you drive like your mother is in the back with a piping hot cup of coffee that is filled to the rim. It’s bad enough that a wild animal has to be riding in a vehicle in the first place, the least that can be done is to make it as easy a ride as possible.

That song “Double Vision” from the 70’s or early 80’s was now piping through the speakers as we reached the exit for 169 south. Somehow it seemed appropriate given the condition of the wipers as they smeared the rain around on the windshield methodically. Ordinarily, the area where we were driving has amazing scenery, but on this day it was moody and mysterious because of the low hanging clouds and rain. Every so often I would come around a curve and see out over the valley or over to the mountains and the view would be partially obscured by the fog and clouds. There was a thick deck of stratus clouds and the rain was picking up by that time. It reminded me of an episode of Twin Peaks or something. We meandered our way towards Highway 18 and eventually Auburn-Black Diamond Road. I was starting to get excited for the wild being that was riding in the back because it wouldn’t be long now….or would it?

After we had turned onto Green Valley Road, it was supposed to be less than ten miles to the release site. Then I saw bright orange detour signs appear about 2 ½ miles before the expected turn off for Flaming Geyser Park, which was our destination. Oh great. I followed the detour signs as Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused” droned through the horrendous speakers in The Beast. It made it sound like Robert Plant was singing inside a tin can. That song ties to a fond memory that I have, so it eased the frustration of the detour we were taking into Enumclaw. The detour went all over the place, but it never seemed to go in the direction that I needed it to. I thought this detour might need a little tweaking. I pulled over, got the GPS out, plugged it in and punched in “Flaming Geyser Park” to see if the GPS had a better way. Bridgette, as I call the GPS, has found her way around more than a few detours in her day. I call it Bridgette because the voice on the GPS has a female British accent. As soon as I gave her a destination, she spoke up with confidence, “in four hundred yahhhddss…..turn right”. Eventually Bridgette led me straight to the barricade that was blocking the road on the other side of the detour. I was starting to get really frustrated because the raccoon had been riding in the vehicle for a couple of hours now and I wanted to get him released. I sighed and looked in the rearview mirror as I sat in front of the blockade that stretched ¾ of the way across Green Valley Road. I decided that the raccoon and I were “local traffic” and that we needed to get around that detour. Even if I couldn’t get to the park itself, perhaps I could get to a suitable release site away from the road and close to the river. At this point, it was looking more and more like this was probably going to be the scenario. That’s when I crested a hill and saw it. The bridge, or make that the LACK of a bridge. This was just not working out the way I had planned. I mean, how hard can it be to get a raccoon to a park? Apparently it can be quite a task if the conditions are just right.

I still had the “suitable release site” idea in the back of my head, but I wanted to reach the intended release site if at all possible. There were a ton of construction trucks and I pulled over and got out for a minute to go and talk to one of the construction guys. I told him about the problems with the detour and how I needed to find a way around it to get to the park. His mouth went a mile a minute, but I caught the early turns and I figured Bridgette could take it from there. That isn’t how it worked out. Bridgette led me astray in the woods surrounding Enumclaw. “How could you, Bridgette!! Today of ALL days!!!” I turned around and headed back out to the road where things still seemed to be heading in the right direction. Eventually, after navigating past many horse farms, we came upon the sign for the park. As we approached the park, I could see a ton of emergency vehicles and a lot of people in the river wearing brightly colored life vests and wetsuits. It appeared that a local agency was conducting a swift water rescue training in the park. I figured that was isolated to that one part of the river and that I’d find a nice quiet spot to release the raccoon. I continued deeper into the park and there were more and more cars and more and more people and dogs everywhere. My stomach sank as I realized that this was probably not going to work. Where else but the Pacific Northwest do people cookout in the pouring rain? I swear, it was getting on my last nerve at that moment. I found the most isolated area I could and pulled over to scout it out for a minute. I locked the truck and took the path into the woods towards the river to see if I could get the raccoon to an acceptable location. It wasn’t meant to be. There were people on all of the paths and many of them had off-leash dogs and children. There were people fishing along the riverbank and I wasn’t going to park an adult raccoon in the middle of that three-ring circus.

I climbed back into The Beast spouting a continuous stream of language that only I had to listen to. I drove back out of the park and headed uphill a bit to see if I could find a spot close to the intended release site that was more isolated.

I found an unpaved road that headed back towards the river from the other side. My eyes narrowed as I looked for signs that said things like “private property” and whatnot. I didn’t see any “no trespassing” signs or “private property” signs and I thought I had finally found an appropriate location. It was nearing 2 o’clock and the raccoon had been in the back of the truck since around 10:45am. Just about that time I saw a large red pickup truck pull in and start following me. The one sign that I had seen said “dead end”. I thought to myself, “didn’t you see the DEAD END sign????” GEEZ! I went to the bottom where there was a type of dwelling surrounded by a high fence, barbed wire, and had an aggressive dog that ran the length of the fence as I turned around. I headed back out figuring I had been shot down again. I glanced over to my left on my way back up the hill and I saw the place that I wanted to release the raccoon if I could just get this truck with its occupants out of my hair. I waited until the truck made it up the hill and then I turned right and headed up the road as I watched to see where the truck was going to go. He turned left and headed downhill. YAY! I turned around at the first suitable spot and headed back to the dirt road. I headed back down the hill and pulled over at the spot I had seen a few minutes earlier.

I turned The Beast off and set the parking brake in a hurry. I zipped around to the back opening the canopy and lowered the tailgate simultaneously. I stopped for a minute and looked around and listened. Silence. All I could hear was the rushing water of the river that was about 150 yards from my location. I hopped in the back of the truck to retrieve the carrier and that is when I got snapped back into reality by the snarling raccoon. He sounded PISSED. I can’t say I blamed him at that moment after all of the ridiculousness we had just been through. I grabbed the carrier and headed into the ferns on the steep hillside. The raccoon continued to snarl and I was thigh-deep in ferns and spider webs. I placed the carrier in the best available spot and pulled the sheet off. I reached to open the door and the raccoon snarled and struck at the door. In my mind, I was just hoping that the raccoon would exit the carrier and go AWAY from me. I figured that he would, but you never really know what a wild animal will do until he does it. I had only gotten the door to the carrier open about six or eight inches when the raccoon launched through the door. He actually caught air coming out of the carrier and he was a blur of stripes as he fired downhill through the ferns towards the river. I cracked a big smile and headed back to the truck with the carrier in hand. I closed everything up, put it in 4WD and maneuvered The Beast back out of the woods.

All of the frustration that had been building up for the last few hours evaporated in that moment. I wasn’t gripping the wheel quite as tightly and I exhaled. It always feels good to return an animal to the wild that has suffered at the hands of humans. It feels especially good when it feels like the release itself has been something of an ordeal. I pointed The Beast north towards Seattle and smiled knowing that the raccoon was in the best spot I could find and that he was far way from the road and humans. I looked in the rearview mirror at the road behind me and said, “good luck”.