BAKER CITY — With his feet freezing and the prospect of a long and snowy winter night ahead with a bloody elk hide the only shelter, Noah Chaney was never so glad to hear the rumble of a boat motor.

Although his affinity for his brother’s new hatchet was, if anything, greater still.

Noah, 20, along with his older brother, Neil Chaney Jr., 22 (who goes by John), and Noah’s best friend, Isaac Logan, 20, were in quite a predicament as the sun went down on Sunday, Jan. 30, at the eastern edge of Baker County.

The trio had started the day hoping to fill their elk tags in the steep country above Brownlee Reservoir, several miles southeast of Richland.

Isaac killed a big cow around 9:30 a.m.

The friends, along with the Chaneys’ dad, Neil Sr., 43, of Baker City, came up with a plan. They were too far below their rigs to haul 400 pounds or so of elk meat up the precipitous, snow-covered slopes. Better, they figured, to take advantage of gravity to ease their burden. Neil Sr. agreed to hike to the ridge, drive back to Baker City and haul the family’s boat. He’d meet the trio on the shore, more than 1,000 feet below. He left around 11:30 a.m.

Before they started down to the water, Noah, John and Isaac managed to kindle a fire that they used to cook some flank steak from the elk — probably the freshest meat any of them had ever enjoyed. But they didn’t have a lighter or even matches to get a blaze going on the cold and blustery January day.

They had a hatchet. And a chunk of flint that came with it. The hatchet, Noah said, was a gift this past Christmas to John from their sister, Abbigail. They were able to coax enough sparks from the flint to catch some dry tinder.

“It’s difficult,” was Noah’s succinct description of starting a fire the old-fashioned way, with no assistance from butane or some other petroleum accelerant.

The elk meat tasted fine, though, to the trio who had only had bagels and coffee for breakfast.

Noah, a student at Eastern Oregon University, La Grande, John, who lives in Eugene, and Isaac, who’s from Prineville, wrapped the elk hide around the meat and maneuvered it, which is to say rolled it as best they could, down through the sage and the rock outcrops, to Brownlee.

They arrived at water’s edge around 1:30 p.m., Noah said.

When they got to the river they sparked a second blaze to warm their frigid feet while they waited for the elder Chaney to arrive by boat.

Noah said his dad had figured he could get there by about 3 p.m., so it ought not be a long wait.

But 3 p.m. passed.

And then 4 p.m.

“We were sitting, waiting, hoping that we would hear a boat eventually,” Noah said.

At the farthest edge of Oregon, at the bottom of a canyon more than 2,000 feet deep, the dark came fast. The temperature dropped. The wind rose.

They found an old dead tree near a decrepit cabin.

They hauled the tree to their makeshift camp on the rocky shore and used the hatchet to chop a pile of firewood. Then they sliced some backstrap from the elk and had another meal.

By this point, Noah said, the group concluded that their dad wasn’t going to show up with the boat. They hunkered down for what they expected would be a chilly and unpleasant night. But first they retrieved the elk hide.

They came up with a schedule — one would wrap up in the hide and try to sleep for an hour while the two others stayed close to the fire. They’d swap the hide every hour. It was about 9:55 p.m. when John said he heard an engine and they saw a white glow.

It was the light bar on a Baker County Sheriff’s Office boat. Inside the vessel were Sheriff Travis Ash and Marine Deputy Wayne Paxton.

They had braved 8 miles of icy whitecaps and blowing snow from the boat ramp at Moonshine Mine Park near Swede’s Landing on Brownlee.

“Thank goodness,” was Noah’s reaction. “It was so nice to see.”

Neil Sr. had brought his boat from Baker City. But it wouldn’t start, said Frances Chaney, Neil Sr.’s wife and Noah and John’s mother. Knowing the trio of hunters was waiting to be picked up by boat, the Chaneys got word to Ash by phone at 6:39 p.m.

Ash said that after hearing the couple’s story, and knowing that a snowstorm was moving in, he decided that a rescue operation couldn’t wait for the morning. He and Paxton brought the boat to Moonshine Mine Park.

Another group of search and rescue volunteers was on standby in case the trio had hiked back up the mountain rather than wait on the shore.

Ash said the boat trip on the black water was one of the more harrowing in his experience.

Brownlee is about 32 feet below full, and at that level rocks, normally well below the surface, pose a danger to boats, Ash said.

“We were running at about 7 mph,” he said.

They were able to establish a GPS track to follow back to the park, so they could run a bit faster on the return.

The Chaneys were reunited around midnight.

Noah said he is grateful not only for the rescue, but also for that hatchet and the flint that not only kept the trio somewhat warm, but also kept their stomachs satisfied with flame-cooked venison.

“Without that hatchet and the fire, I have no doubt we would have had some frostbite,” Noah said. “Once it got dark our feet froze. We had walked through knee-deep snow, our socks were soaked. We had blisters. It was miserable.”