Read Part 1

Read Part 2

Day 3 -

Saturday night the rain came and came hard. I awoke several times during the night to readjust and the sound of the drops hitting the tarp was deafening, but it was reassuring to know we had that barrier between the water and us.  Sunday morning began with groups of people gathered around the fire drying out gear that got soaked during the night. Some shelters worked better than others. One was lined with a space blanket which protected the occupants during the night, but as he crawled out in the morning, he disrupted it and the water that was pooled within gushed all over his lap. All in all, everyone was quite proud of their shelters and they were, for the most part, dry and relatively comfortable.

Dreary Morning

The night before, Dave let us all know that we were moving on in the evolution of basic survival. Now that we had fire, cover, and basic needs met, we are now all able to band together and really get things done. Everyone in the group has their own strengths and skills. Mickey, for example, had the knack for bringing back all sorts of various little critters: Snakes, frogs etc. Jason was the in-house authority on edible plants and I was getting to be known as the shoreline forager. Others volunteered for fire duty, boiling water, firewood etc.

Our task for the morning was to divide and conquer: Set out and gather breakfast and anything else we could scavenge that may give us any advantage in the future. Four of us hit the beach; two to tunnel rock up north, and I and another set off south about a half mile to the next visible group of rocks and inevitable tide-pools. Jason and another set of to gather all the berries possible. Mickey and a couple others set off to the marsh for whatever they may find there.

It was still cold and raining and I wasn’t in any type of mood to try to get any razor clams so I picked around in the driftwood up in the splash zone. This stretch of beach is so infrequently visited by man that there was tons of debris scattered about up in the mess. I was in overload. There was so much good stuff I couldn’t carry it all. There was a 5-gallon water jug that I rigged in a sling and cut a hole in the side and used it as a carrier for all the good stuff I had. Then I found another water jug. This one was in perfect condition. I plucked it up too. Then I came across a stream emerging from the woods. This was awesome. The rain presented a great opportunity for water which was capitalized upon by all and we had lots of clean fresh water back at camp that we no longer needed to boil, however, I took this opportunity to gather 5 gallons of cleaner-than-the-swamp water with which to wash our hands and such so we didn’t have to use our precious drinking water for washing.

Eventually, Johnathon and I reached the south rock pile. He immediately found a dungeness crab trapped in a pool. This one was considerably larger than my 1st one and in much better shape. I was stoked. The rest of our foraging was much less exciting. There was nothing of value in the rest of the pools. The surf was muddy and the pools quite silty. I resorted to picking more kelp: Even that was lack-luster. I’m used to the nice, big bladderwrack. All we had was the smaller, rock-clinging variety. It was edible, but required much more preparation.

We made our way back to camp to gather our bounty. A couple guys were able to score a common shore bird large enough for quite a bit of meat. Jason and company got probably a quart of berries which was made into quite a tasty juice, and there was one guy processing marsh reed roots to stew.

I boiled our crab, threw in the reeds and then when the crab was done, I took it out and cleaned it. It was at this time I had an idea. Normally we throw away everything but the bodymeat and legs. What I did was pop off the shell, remove the gills, chop the body into sections, break the leg shells open to expose the meat and then throw it all back into the pot.

I tell you what, that stew was the hit of the day. It smelled sooooo good and tasted even better. After all the body parts boiled in for a bit, we handed out the the body parts and split up the broth. I used the shell as my bowl, swirling the broth around to gather up all the fats still left within and then slurped it all down. Holy hell it was good. It just amazed me how much good stuff we toss out when cleaning game in the comfort of civilization.

After breakfast Dave and Crit’r started on the trapping lesson. Trapping, and in this case, snaring is much easier than it may sound. But at the same time, it’s not as reliable for bringing in food as it may seem. Trapping is a percentage game. If you only set one, you probably won’t score a thing. If you set 10, you might get one. Setting 50, wisely, will give you better odds of scoring something to eat. The cool thing about their system is that 1 simple setup can be adapted to sooooo many different applications. Without pictures, it’s difficult to explain, but with a little imagination, it can be adapted into anything, even fishing.

The thing about trapping versus hunting is, while hunting, you are required to go out and try to track and kill a single animal. During this time, nothing else is getting done: The fire is going out, you shelter isn’t getting built, your water isn’t getting boiled, etc. With trapping, you can have as many snares set up as you want and they are always on duty, 24/7, allowing you to get other stuff done. That’s a big thing with the pathfinder system: Multi-purpose tools and activities. Every one of the 5 C’s can be used in many different ways. With them, nearly anything can be accomplished out there.

I really wish I had taken pictures of my traps. I was quite proud of them and even Crit’r who is a trapping maniac was impressed by my creativity with one of my squirrel run snares. In fact, one of these days I am going to replicate it and do a video of its’ workings for you.

A basic snare setup

As I was heading into the woods to find the perfect spot for my snares I noticed something on the ground that I was not expecting at all so close to the beach on the flats: Chantrelle mushrooms. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Normally I only find them higher up in the woods, but I guess the conditions were just right for them here. I greedily gathered them up, (there was about a pound total), and ran them back to camp. The snares could wait. I wanted to eat these NOW. We had no butter, only salt so I sprinkled a little on there and sauteed them over the fire. I tried to get everyone to at least try some, but they were chicken. I suppose I could understand, but if I know 1 mushroom it’s a chantrelle.  I got Ken to try one, and a couple other tried some, but they let me eat the majority of them. Wow they were delicious. It’s amazing how much better something gets when you are hungry.

After  the mushroom break, I went back out to place my traps. I put one, a pressure switch, in a narrow gully that I could tell was frequented by a small animal. For this one, there was no springy branch available as a “power source” so I ran the snare wire up through a carabiner and tied it to a log suspended about 4 feet off the ground. Tripping the trigger would release the line, causing the log to fall, raising the snare and the prey into the air.

The other snare I placed on a log spanning about 20 feet that had obvious sign of a squirrel or chipmunk. I was quite proud of my squirrel run trap. It’s funny, because I was getting so tired by this point that I just sat there for probably 10 or 15 minutes staring at the log wondering how the heck I would make a trigger on the top of a log. Suddenly an epiphany hit me and I rigged up an elegantly simple, yet beautiful little system. It worked flawlessly, if only a squirrel would take the bait.

Once those were all set, it was back to camp for the land navigation portion. This was very basic as there wasn’t nearly enough time to go into actual compass/map navigation. Instead they focused on general direction finding using sun, stars, moon and other landmarks. There’s the obvious: “The ocean is over there, so you know that’s west” and the not so obvious: Did you know that if you line up the points on a crescent moon and follow that line to the horizon, that’s south? And if you can orient a stick to point directly at a star and wait a few minutes, the direction the star travels tells you the general direction the stick is pointing.

Crit'r Sun navigation demo

Then there’s using a little common sense: Plants will generally grow towards the sun, right? Did you ever stop and look and notice that a lot of times there’s more branches on the south side of trees? Obviously, this isn’t a 100% reliable way, but it’s something to keep in mind while out and about. Keep your eyes open, see how often that is the case. bring a little button compass with you to test that theory. Keep in mind other landmarks as well, if a tree is growing on the edge of a meadow backed up by a forest, there will probably be more branches facing the open meadow, regardless of direction.

All of the techniques given are not exact. It’s more of a way to get a general idea of direction. It’s always better to practice these skills in the comfort of your own back yard or on a camping trip or hike when you have a compass for reference just to get a feel for it. The important thing to remember is, if you’re lost, pick a direction and maintain that direction. Don’t just start walking blindly. You will end up going in circles.

So, after the land-nav, Crit’r went in to primitive weapons and hunting. The two main weapons to focus on are the the “rabbit stick” and spear. The rabbit stick is explained here:

The spear should be longer than you are tall to avoid impaling yourself if you trip and the tip split twice in order to make four points. The more area covered, the better. If you only have one big point, it’s difficult to be accurate on small game. Picture a frog gig; about 4 points spread out to ensure a lot of coverage.

Anyway, after this little exercise, Crit’r leads us over to the marsh and tells us we get to practice using our rabbit sticks. We come around the corner and see Dave and Jason crouched out in the middle of the swamp, their head barely poking above the reeds. I chuckled, because I knew what was coming. Earlier that day, they brought in 2 turkeys to camp and we had been drooling over them for a good part of the day.

Crit’r says “You’re a tribe now, think about how you’d stalk an animal to ensure sucess…” about that time, Dave stands up and throws the turkeys in the air. That’s when it got nuts. Everyone threw subtlety out the window and about 12 ravenous grown men started hauling ass across the swamp towards the turkeys. I saw one rabbit stick flying through the air from at least 60 feet away. Mickey bolted through the deepest part, went down and I saw the water wash over his back up to his neck. All I could think was “Dammit guys, you’re gonna lose them”

The turkeys were making their way to the tree line over to the side so I and another started that way to head them off. I managed to stay relatively dry on the way over. We got to the tree line and made our way to where I figured the turkeys would go, but by that time the rabid masses had managed to actually chase the turkeys down. It’s amazing what a person can do when they’re hungry enough.

I understand Iris filmed the whole mad dash, so I’ll link to that if and when they upload it.

Mickey's Turkey

Mickey and Scott, the lucky guys who actually made the killshots set off to cleaning our dinner while everyone else gathered wood for the fire or stripped down to dry off as much as possible. That was our last actual task for the weekend. From here there was no more tasks. It was all fellowship and fun for the rest of the night. The turkey was put on the fire and before long was in our bellies. The sight of 16+ grown men standing around telling jokes in their long-johns was quite a sight.

I have never had so much fun being so miserable in my life.

Part 4 will be a wrap-up and lessons that I have taken away from this whole experience. I will also list as many links to pictures and videos of the weekend that I can find.

Part 4: Wrapup

My mom was up and we decided to take the kids on a picnic. Originally, we wanted to head on down to Third Beach by LaPush, but when we got to the parking lot, it was packed beyond capacity and I’m not one for crowds so we fell back on our backup plan. Rialto Beach. I have always loved this stretch of coast. It’s not a sandy beach, but the shore is covered with miles of driftwood, fires are permitted, but pets are not. The shoreline is steep and even on calm days, the waves are large.

The Quileute River empties into the Pacific just south of the beach, and it is flanked on the north and south sides by a jetty and several large haystack rock type islands. Recently, a Coast Guard helicopter enroute from Astoria to their base in Alaska crashed here. The pilot, unfamiliar with the area, hit the power lines spanning between James Island and the mainland. Three of the four crew died.

Driftwood fun

But today that wasn’t on our minds. The weather was overcast, it appeared as if it would rain at any second, but it held out for us. The kids immediately ran out to the beach to chase the waves and I just relaxed on a comfy piece of driftwood. Despite the amout of cars n the parking lot, the beach is large enough to easily accommodate the crowds. From my little spot, I could see many many people, but we still had a decent amount of privacy in which to eat our lunch.

Pickled herring, cheese & crackers with yogurt and plums for dessert. I have always felt quite fortunate that I have kids who LOVE seafood. They’ll gobble down just about any kind of fish you give them, crab, clams, anything.  They’ll at least try whatever you put in front of them. If they don’t like it I don’t care, but they love to try new stuff.

As we were finishing up lunch I decided to build a fire. Shaved some driftwood, layed some sticks down and had no problem at all getting it going. Right about that time, Tierra came up with a big bull kelp bulb filled with water. “Dad! I found something we can drink from!” She was excited.  She has been watching some of those survival shows on TV and has been bugging me to take her out and “survive” in the woods for quite some time now. One of these weekends, we’ll do it, but right then I had an idea.

The following actually made me think of  Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager. Langdon Cook, Twitter:@LangdonCook, from Seattle utilizes the bounty found all over the Pacific Northwest to make some really wonderful dishes. The average person living in the area has no idea the bounty that surrounds us.

I leaned a log over the fire, stuck a stick through the top of the bull kelp container and used some other seaweed laying around to suspend the whole thing over the fire. It was just about perfect. I wasn’t planning on drinking the seawater she had in it, but I just wanted to see if the concept would work for boiling water in bull kelp. Now, I realize that the boiling point of water rises slightly as its’ salinity rises, so I just wanted to see how hot it would get. It worked pretty well. It got too hot to touch before the “rope” burnt and broke. The walls of that particular piece of kelp were quite thick as well, perhaps preventing a lot of heat from getting to the water inside.

Boiling water in Bull Kelp

Boiling water in a kelp bowl

While this was cooking, I had Tierra gather up some more bulbs and cut off the tops, making them look like little cups. I tied the narrow seaweed to the twig on the inside of the cup to prevent it from burning and stuck another bowl of water over the fire. All in all, I wouldn’t do this for water unless life depended on it. The water turned a little slimy from the kelp, but it was a fun experiment anyway.

My mom came back from the shore with a big bundle of seaweed that resembles crab claws: Bladderwrack. I remember eating this in a stew she mad when I was younger and she made us all try some again today. It wasn’t bad; salty and a bit slimy, but tasted pretty good overall. It would be better with something like crackers to off-set the sliminess. We stuck a bit of it in another kelp kup by the fire to cook to see how that would turn out. It cooked it fine, but wasn’t that great. My mom roasted it like marshmallows over the fire. That actually turned out really good.

Eventually, though, we had to go. We left the beach and set off for home. Once back at the house I built another fire as mom and Janell got dinner together. My mom had brought back some bladderwrack and sauteed it in some ginger and garlic. She also had some elk strips marinated for kabobs. I had some mushrooms left over from stuffing them a few days ago and cut up some jalapenos for the kabobs.  She also made a salad with some oysters that a friend of hers smoked himself. Dinner was delicious.

All in all it was a great day. Taught the kids some new skills, tried some new food, and they went to bed and crashed hard from the activity of the day.

As many times as I have done The High Divide and passed the trail that leads down into the Seven Lakes Basin, I have never actually gone down into it. So, I packed my fishing pole, checked the weather forecast, (it called for rain), and set out super early so that I would have enough time to do everything I wanted.

I hit the trail at 5:30 in the morning. It was just getting light and I could just make out the trail without a flashlight. I wanted to get to Deer Lake before it got too light and the fish had eaten their fill. It’s about 4 miles up to the lake and I made it in about an hour and a half. The sun was just lighting up the tops of the hills around Deer lake and I was beginning to think that the weatherman got it wrong again. Oh well, I don’t mind it when he says it’s going to rain and it doesn’t.

Brook Trout from Deer Lake

I walked around to the back side of the lake where the stream feeds it. I have always had my best luck at the mouths of streams. I figure it’s because it feed the lakes with fresh water and food and bugs as well.  There’s a little gravel bar poking out into the lake that I just couldn’t reach without getting wet, so I took off my boots and socks, slopped through the boggy grassy area and came out onto the bar.

There’s nothing more annoying while you are trying to enjoy a peaceful, quiet morning fishing for mountain trout than a fish that swallows a treble hook and ends up dying from getting torn up trying to get it out. I have cut off 2 of the 3 hooks on all my spinners, and on most of them even pinched the barbs down on them. It paid off today. The fish were ferocious. The first one I caught I thought was twice as big as it really was. But in reality it was only about 8 or 9 inches long. He took the hook quite a ways down his throat, but thanks to the barbless single hook it slipped right out and he was able to swim away without any damage.  They were slow to bite, but when they did they were fighters. It was fun.

Fields of Heather

After about 45 minutes in the water, I called it quits, dried off my feet, put on my extra set of socks and set off up towards Lunch Lake. From Deer Lake it’s about 4 more miles, nearly all uphill but the flowers were in full bloom which made it a little more bearable. Red heather, yellow heather, lupine,  bear grass, avalanche lilies, indian paintbrush, subalpine spiraea, cascade azalea (a type of rhododendron), tiger lilies, and several others were present a various points along  the way. Red mountain heather dominated the landscape though.

Above Deer Lake, just above the area called “the potholes” is a switchbacked, rocky climb that for some reason, I dread more than any other section on this whole trail. It’s really not that bad, but it just seems to go on forever. This time, however, it wasn’t as bad as I remember. It’s probably because I’m in better shape than I have been in years, and also, the Red Mountain Heather was thick. I have never seen it so thick and colorful.

On the top of that hill the trail levels out a bit and turns into a softer, less rocky forest trail. It follows along the south side of the ridge and goes in and out of the forest; the clear spots offering views down into the valley and to the hillside on the far side. Snow fields fill the low spots on the opposite side year round and if you are lucky, mountain goats and an occasional black bear can be seen. In one section of this part of the trail, the smell of elk filled the air. On previous trips I have seen the herd in the valley below, but have never smelled them this distinctly. I was sure that they would bust out of the brush at any moment, spooked by my presence, but I never saw them.

Lunch Lake From Above

Finally around 10:00 I reached the trail down to the basin. There’s a beautiful little viewpoint at the top, just before the descent that a group was taking the opportunity to take some pictures. I did too. As soon as I began dropping down the trail I knew that it was going to be a pain to get back up out of there when I left: the trail was steep and rocky, but it was only about a half mile down, and it went by quickly. On the way down I passed a family that had camped at the lake that night and now the 2 kids with them were showing their displeasure at being loaded down with gear having to climb this sadistic grade. I let them know that once they reached the top of this one, it was all downhill from there.

Upon reaching the lake, I immediately noticed a boulder field on the uphill side that looked perfect for fishing. I made my way over and perched on a promising looking rock and cast my line. It was at this precise moment that my head started to burn. I rubbed it and felt a mass of little bumps and as I removed my hand, about 5 mosquitoes fell onto the rock around me. Those little bastards were thick in the air.  I couldn’t believe that I forgot my bug spray. I grabbed a spare shirt and covered my head and neck which helped quite a bit but they were on my arms now too. It’s a pain in the ass to try and fish and swat mosquitoes at the same time. I checked my first aid kit to see it there was anything I could use. The closest thing I could find were some disinfecting wipes. I figured perhaps the chemicals in it would be hostile to their noses. I couldn’t tell much difference. I think I left about 3 pounds of dead mosquitoes on that rock, and to top it all off, I didn’t catch anything at that spot.

Lunch Lake Brook Trout

Continuing around the lake counter-clockwise the shore offer many great areas that would be great for swimming or fishing. It drops off quickly and the water is beautifully clear. But I didn’t have much luck. There was one spot where there was a boulder half in the water. I climbed up onto it and as soon as I poked my head over, I saw a fish dart off into the deep. No luck there either. Finally on the side opposite the trail and campsites, there’s a shore made of large gravel. That’s where I had my first bite. But they are crafty little fish and that was the only bite. On down the shore a ways I finally hooked one. This one fought like it was twice as big as it really was. Also, using my ultra-light pole made it even more of a blast taking them in.

Spinners did ok, but I would imagine that if you had some live bait, or PowerBait, that you could knock them dead and make one heck of a meal out of these guys.

I noticed a sign pointing down a hill towards Clear Lake. I figured what the heck, I’m here to explore, let’s explore. Half way down to the lake I was already regretting it. It was steeper and rockier than the trail down to Lunch Lake. Oh well, I was committed to the cause and kept going. Upon reaching Clear Lake, I noticed it was a lot less clear than the Other lakes in the range. It had that brownish tinge to it and appeared quite stagnant. It was lunch time, but I didn’t want to hang out here and eat; It just wasn’t that inspiring. So I trucked on back up the hill, my legs weakening from hunger, but before long I made it back to Lunch Lake and had lunch.

Yellow Mountain Heather

I had some bread in a hard container, some habanero cheese from our trip to Tillamook last week, and some ham. Two sandwiches later I was stuffed and ready to go. By that time the clouds were rolling in and it was cooling down considerably. The weather man did call for afternoon showers and it looked like he was going to be right afterall. I told myself to take it easy on the way back up. Normally I push hard to get the heart going and sweat flowing. Today I held myself back to keep my self dry. I wasn’t in the mood to get chilled like that. So I took it easy coming up out of the basin and before i knew it I was at the top of the hill, crossing the last patch of snow and beginning the downhill slide back to Deer Lake.

I must have eaten too much because my gut started growling at me and I felt like I was going to lose it. I slowed down some more to try and let it settle. A rain drop hit me.  And another. I pulled my hat out of my pack to keep my face and neck dry and before long I was back above Deer Lake coming down that stretch of trail to the potholes. Around this time I started passing groups of people on their way up to the basin and other campsites in the area. I thought  to myself they sure are getting late starts, but who am I to make those judgments?

Red Mountain Heather

At Deer Lake I recharged again, drank a red bull that the wife had got for me and stretched out a bit in preparation for the final 4 miles down the hill. By now the sun had popped out again so I took off my long sleeves and hat, I never wear long sleeves if I don’t have to.

I tried taking it easy down the hill, but old habits die hard and before I knew it I was skipping along, bouncing over the rocks and working on my footwork. I passed several more groups of people coming up the hill, wished them luck with their trips and kept on cruising.

I reached the car at 4:30. I had originally scheduled to meet up with the family at the Hot Springs at 5:00 so this was about perfect. I drove down to the resort, bought an overpriced 6 pack and had a couple beers before the wife and kids showed up for a relaxing evening in the pools. It felt so good. I could have hung out in there for hours, but dinner time was approaching and we left there about 7:00, had some burgers and went home. I was so beat that we decided to clean up in the morning. The rest of the night was meant for relaxing.