The Old Man And The Mountain

At 92, Bill McDonnell was still an expert hiker and hunter of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. But on a frigid December day, the war vet took one shortcut too many.

- Robert Nelson

BILL MCDONNELL WAS going bonkers. Deer season had begun, but it was colder than usual, so here he was, sitting among the mounted bucks inside his house near Winchester, Va., watching winter through the windows.

Up until his late 80s, McDonnell hadn’t minded hunting in sub-zero temperatures, but he had slowed in the past few years. The snow-dusted mountains of the Shenandoah Valley were no place for a 92-year-old. But man, did he want to get outside.

Then, on December 15, the forecast brightened, and before he announced his intentions, his wife, Joanna McDonnell, knew what he was up to. The couple went through an old song and dance whenever this happened.

“You’re not going,” Joanna would say.

“I’m going,” McDonnell would shoot back. Joanna would try to bargain.

“You’re not taking your gun. Stay on a trail.”

“I’m hunting,” he’d say.

“Take a friend,” she’d reply.

“They’re all dead.”

“Take Bill Jr.” (Not possible that day. Their son would be at a football game.)

Joanna: “You’re a dang old fool!”

McDonnell: “Agreed.”

But on this particular day, Joanna didn’t even try to talk sense into her husband. McDonnell had fought in the Second World War and in Korea. He’d been a sailor and after that a soldier. A “country boy through and through,” he might respect his wife’s wishes on most topics, but not when it came to the call of the wild. There was a place he hadn’t hunted in a long time, and he wanted to get out there once more before hunting season was over.

THE NEXT MORNING, McDonnell woke up at 4 a.m., grabbed his muzzleloader and steered his Jeep toward Shenandoah Mountain. At the end of the old Laurel Run logging road, he hit the trail on foot.