Day 1:
Who knew that the Three Sisters Wilderness area in the Cascade Mountains could be so HOT? After hiking roughly five miles into Separation Lake we were already dripping but still rarin' to go. Here is a list of our "supplies":
2 knives
2 satchels
wool clothing/2 buffs
moccasins
ferrocerium fire starter
parachute cord
journal
1 poncho
pemmican and acorn meal
diamond knife sharpener
Wow that is actually a lot when we type it out! Our reasons for taking and not taking certain items - we wanted to be as free from manufactured tools as possible but allow ourselves a few tools for the sake of comfort and safety.
Two weeks earlier we had scouted the area to determine the resources available and to try and get a sense of timing of seasonal foods and the like. The place we chose has a pretty dang good sized lake with fish (obvious because of the jumping), a great variety of understory plants in the dense mixed coniferous forest, several meadows, streams, animals such as upland game birds that we consistently flushed, squirrels, elk, frogs, ducks, deer, owls, and countless others.
Finding a place to build a shelter:
After we arrived we decided to go downhill, southeast of the lake to look for a shelter in the small valley next to a stream. We ended up "fording" the creek, luckily we were able to find a sturdy tree as our bridge. After wandering around the other side of the stream among fallen, dead trees - which in retrospect was one hell of an obstacle course. The trees mainly consisted of Cedar, Douglas Fir, Hemlock, and Vine Maples.
Shelter building has three basic requirements: location, insulation, and structure. It would be easier for us to find a natural shelter that we could add on - so this was our goal. 45 minutes later - a shelter! Well more like a fallen log near a small mound that was big enough in-between to fit two people.
However, first order of business - water. Now one thing we have failed to mention was the weather. Mind you, we are in the middle of August and it is hot, muggy, and buggy. The location of our shelter was about 200 feet or more away from the stream - that is of course through the obstacle course of rotting vegetation.
Our thirst drove us to relax and give thanks for the cold, clear, mountain stream that provided us with refreshment. We didn't bring any water purification or any containers for that matter. On the topic of water purification - one should always treat your water. A bout of dysentery in a true survival situation could mean death. However, not drinking water in a survival situation could be as dangerous as spewing out the back end. If anything - boil it. We however did not follow that sage advice and felt confident of the purity and source of the stream. If any emergency arose, five miles isn't too much of task to walk out.
Also, we had to watch ourselves for dehydration and over heating. By that time after walking miles, and more miles finding a shelter we were pretty warm and thirsty. So with many handfuls of water and dousing our buffs we began the joyful task of constructing our shelter.
Using the downed log we put sticks horizontally across to form a roof. Sticks vertically to close off the ends (leaving an opening for a door) and then started piling on debris. Using Fir and Hemlock boughs from dying or newly downed trees we thread them through the framework and stuffed the inside. For the last bit of rain-proofing we found that Skunk Cabbage Leaves make great shingling.
It was late afternoon by then - we were tired, hot, eaten by bugs, thirsty and surprisingly not very hungry. We opted for no fire that night - it would have been too much work and we did not need the heat nor the cooking powers. Instead we rested, drank water, and each had a piece of pemmican and the delicious fruit we gathered on the way in. Huckleberries, Salal, and Thimbleberries. By nightfall we crawled into our shelter and slept for most of the night.
Day 2
Lesson #30 - do not stuff your shelter with dead Cedar boughs and living Fir boughs with thick branches still attached. Ouch!
We decided to start the morning with one of Matt's famous lists.
1. Improve the shelter a.k.a. remove painful objects and insulate!
2. Make fire pit and fire
3. Find garbage
4. Collect food and make traps
After drinking copious amounts of water to rehydrate from the night and being grateful for the morning cool weather we started to make a hearth.
Lesson #38 - old growth conifer forests = thick ground duff! We had to dig down a good 6 inches to reach the soil. However we were still very nervous since it was fire season and thunder was beginning to roll. (Side note: singing "The Thunder Rolls" over and over again causes marital tension and on that note as does "Love Will Keep Us Alive", but that's a different story.)
Luckily we found flat basaltic rock to use as a fire platform. Wanting to utilize the cool morning we decided to get on with other projects before dealing with a fire.
Next step: fixing the shelter. There were many gaps and holes that would not have fared well in a rainstorm or in weather colder than 40 degrees. Nor did we have a door - it was very hot that first night so it was comfortable.
We gathered more Hemlock and Fir boughs (stripping the smaller branches away) to re-stuff the inside. Moss was useful for stuffing cracks and gaps underneath logs and with large strips - for shingling. We added a few more layers of boughs on top of the shelter along with a couple more arm loads of the abundant Skunk Cabbage leaves.
The door was constructed of a light framework of sticks with a large piece of moss as the insulating cover. We were not completely happy with the construction - but knew that the weather was still very warm and hadn't rained. . . yet. . . .
Food and garbage gathering
On our first survey of the land we noticed a pile of cans and other garbage left by horse campers. We decided that if at that point in time it wasn't feasible to make containers by coal burning then garbage would become a very good friend.
Five rusty coffee cans clanked out our names decked out with pre-made handles. Picking the least rusted two out of the bunch and grabbing a three gallon plastic jug we were made in the shade.
The coffee cans were first put to use by holding the Pond Lily seed pods we gathered. Anna was well entertained by watching Matt, buck- naked walking (rather stumbling) through the knee deep sludge of the bottom of the lake. His efforts were well rewarded with a good can full of the pods. While Matt gathered the pods Anna set to the task of fishing fishing line out of a tree - she was rewarded as well.
Next we eyed the beautiful stand of Cattail. Once again in the muddy deluge, we carefully picked our way over to the closest stalks and learned that it is one hell of a task digging out Cattail roots! Gratefully we harvested four stalks - enough for a starchy meal of roots.
Back to camp!
We drank more water but soon realized it was not as hot and humid as the day before and that clouds seemed to be moving in. More thunder was heard and throughout most of the day fire spotting helicopters roamed above.
Fire making!
This was one skill that Matt felt pretty good about. We had practiced a lot at home and studied up on which woods would be best for friction fire making in that ecosystem. Matt was also hoping to test out his handdrill skills to hopefully make our fire a simpler project. Unfortunately Matt had cut open his hand the previous week while practicing and wasn't able to give it a try (tip: don't practice handdrill when your skin is soft after doing the dishes!) Nevertheless, on the hike in we had gathered a variety of pieces of Western Red Cedar, Douglas-fir, and Big leaf Maple to build a bowdrill set. We had even cheated and brought along some parachute cord since this would be out first time relying on friction fire to keep us warm and cook our food.
Turns out that it is a lot harder than we thought to operate a bowdrill without any artificial lubrication in the top socket and with no calories in our bellies. The effort proved too much and we were quickly exhausted. Good thing that we brought the ferrocerium (magnesium) striker for a backup. And yet that proved extremely difficult as well. even with a large bundle of the supposedly-ideal cedar bark tinder it took us way too long to get a fire going. We have always known that friction fire is a very humbling experience but this was a very powerful lesson.
Cooking!
With a fire going we were finally able to get some food in our bellies, although it wasn't a lot. First we made ash cakes from the acorn meal that we had packed and some berries that we had gathered. ash cakes are basically a simple bread cooked directly in the fire. They are great enough to deserve their own post so we will do a more thorough discussion of ash cakes another time.
We also were able to make a simple stew of cattail roots, a cattail punk, wild greens, and some pemmican for fat. The greens we gathered around our camp area and they consisted mostly of Queen's Cup and Wood Sorrel. This stew was thin and hardly filling but it gave us a much needed energy boost. For round two of our meal we attempted to roast the Pond Lily seeds. They were difficult to separate from the gooey mess inside the seed pods and many of them were bitter but under better circumstances and prepared by someone who knew what hu was doing I think that they would be quite tasty.
With the leftover leaves from the cattail we begun weaving a mat. a nicely woven cattail mat is great for sitting on and several mats layered together make a waterproof covering for a more permanent shelter. We definitely didn't have enough leaves to make a large mat but we didn't want to waste what we had so we started a small mat. If you ever do this we recommend drying the leaves first and then re-soaking them for pliability. cattails shrink more than almost any other weaving material I have used and your finished product may be worthless because it has become so loose.
For day 3 we wanted to try our hand at hunting. Matt had been wanting to use a throwing stick so we both sat down by the fire to whittle away at a couple of branches we gathered. Also the lake was such a prime resource for fish and using the fishing line Anna had collected we hoped to make a decent fishing set. Using Vine Maple we each carved a gorge hook and wrapped the fishing line and a strand of parachute cord as our line. We debated about the bait - at the time the best idea we had were the tons of teeny frogs that littered the shoreline. Pemmican was another idea.
All of this time we could sense the coming of a storm. There had been a few showers and we had observed a steady pattern of thunder, wind and then stillness throughout the day. Lightning always makes Anna nervous and she was a little edgy. The storms seemed to be working around us for the most part, though, and we were not too concerned. However, after going to sleep we were awoken by a larger-than-usual bout of wind and spent some time outside by the fire so that we would be able to react if a tree were to fall. There were several huge crashes as some other trees fell in nearby parts of the forest so it was a very real threat.
By morning the rain had begun in earnest and our shelter was starting to leak through the Skunk Cabbage shingling. We laid in the shelter for a while getting dripped on but there is really no point in trying to wait out the rain. We made a decision to cut our trip short and head back to "civilization" for the rest of our vacation. First, though, we had to clean up our camp and hike out the five miles, which really emphasized how hungry we really were.
Even with all of the mishaps and the shortened trip, we felt proud and humbled by our experience. Neither of us had learned more about survival skills or for that matter about ourselves than in those 2 and half days. We have taken those lessons to heart and plan on bettering ourselves and our knowledge and try again as soon as possible.
2 comments:
Brilliant. If tells the tale of what it can really be like. This is probably on of the best and most honest discussions I have seen about a trip like this. It reminds me of Mark Elbroch survival book. Keep it coming. I am glad we linked to you.
This is really well written, and a fantastic trip! Thank you so much for sharing it! Can't wait to hang out more with you sweet folks!
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