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

Read part 1

Day 2 -

I slept restlessly. The hammock was comfortable enough, but the way I was positioned I kept having to readjust and my shirt crept up causing my back to chill. Oh well, I’ve had worse nights.

My 1st night was spent here

We mustered up around the fire and made our way out to the beach for a lesson on the edibles that you can find on the beach and in the tide pools. Jason led this class. He’s a local working towards his Pathfinder instructor certification. I, too, was right at home here. Dave and crew, however, are from Ohio and this was a learning experience for them as well. We also had others in the group from all over the state and country. There weren’t that many tide pools and the main bounty from this trip was that seaweed that I had talked about in my Rialto Beach post. I ate quite a bit of that. Many of the others, apparently, weren’t that hungry yet.

There was a large pool at the entrance of the tunnel where I had scored a little dungeness crab the night before. I had to strip down and wade in up to my thighs to reach him, but I got him. It felt good to score something like that and since everyone was still unsure of everyone elses names, I was “Crab guy” for a while. That pool was empty this morning.

The tunnel was full of starfish and anemones. Neither of which are edible. Also, not too many people know this, but the sea anemones that you see in tidepools and shorelines are primarily green. This is due to the algae that live within them. If you find a cave or tunnel like this one with limited sunlight, the anemones will be white.

The tide was low, but it wasn’t a very low tide. I looked for razor clams and surprisingly one showed, but those guys are a royal pain to catch even with a good shovel and all I had was a sharp stick and my hands. I went about 2 feet down and quit. No sense in wasting a lot of energy try to get something I probably couldn’t anyway. Had I really been thinking, I suppose I could have rigged up something to use as a shovel or gun, but we were kept so busy, I quickly forgot about them.

After the tidepool walk we went back to camp and I cooked our rice. We added a handful of our fresh seaweed and it tasted delicious. Moments after the rice was done, before we had a chance to eat it, we were hurried off on another nature walk, I took my bowl and ate it on the way. This time it was edible plants and berries. There were wild strawberries littering the ground, but no fruit on them. Various reeds in the marsh have edible roots and then in the forest there were many evergreen blueberries, salal and huckleberries to be had. We ate a lot of them this weekend.

Cedar Bowl

Back at the fire, I filled our bowl with water and dropped in our rocks that we placed in the fire earlier. The water immediately started to boil. It was quite something. The big chunk of cedar that we used held water flawlessly. It was still quite charcoal-y, but hey, it was safe water. With more work it could turn into a viable container, but we accomplished the mission and were glad to be done with it.

Once everyone was gathered again Dave went into the next lesson. Once you have your first fire built, you need to have a way of making another in case your goes out or you have to move or whatever. That’s where char-cloth comes in. Those 5 C’s he keeps talking about? Everything we do can be done with one of them, in one way or another.

Take your Container and put into it some pure cotton cloth. just a few square inches will do. We used a towel that we found on the beach, but a piece of bandanna is perfect as well: anything that is 100% cotton. Seal off the top of the container, but not airtight. Gasses need to be able to escape but oxygen needs to be kept out to prevent combustion. A rock on top of your Guyot bottle works as well. I brought along an Altoids tin. That was perfect. Just put the cloth inside, close the lid, stick the whole thing right on the coals and wait for the smoke and steam to stop seeping out. Carefully remove the container and let it cool. Do not open it right away as the sudden burst of oxygen may cause the contents to immediately combust.

Once it’s cool, open it up and examine it. The cloth will keep its’ form, but will tear very easily. Once in this state it will catch a spark wonderfully and placed in your tinder bundle, you can blow a flame into it in no time. We accomplished this task with ease. Dave’s whole point in making us start fire the hard way was to reinforce, in our minds, to NEVER leave home without a 100% reliable way to build a fire. That ordeal with a bow-drill yesterday, under perfect conditions, was something that you will never want to do if your life depended on it. If conditions are wet, forget about it.  To top it all off, there was still at least one team at this point who hasn’t made the primitive fire. I felt terrible for them. It’s grueling and repetitive work; cutting notches, having your spindle pop out and fly 10 feet away, seeing the smoke coming from the board but not getting a viable coal. It’s hell.  The next thing I get is going to be what’s called Wetfire along with the StrikeForce striker. You can spark this stuff and throw it in the river and it still burns. It’s non-toxic as well, so that’s a plus.

The shelter we built. It's only about 1/2 done here. The roof gets about twice as thick and the other side wall gets closed in

Next on the agenda was shelter. We were informed that we were to build a shelter with whatever we had or could find… and then both of us sleep in it tonight. If we wanted to use parts of our kit, that’s fine, but it all had to stay on the shelter the rest of the weekend. Ken and I opted for the classic lean-to. There was a log that we used for the back wall, I cut a bunch of alder and cedar for the supports, we used cedar boughs as a base for the roof and then thatched the whole thing over with a bunch of dune grass that we picked. I had no idea how much grass it would take to make a viable roof. We picked for hours, but eventually finished. It turned out quite nicely, if I say so myself. In the end, though, I was still a bit unsure of its’ waterproof-ness, so I topped the whole thing with one of my tarps. You can never be to careful when it comes to staying dry. I wasn’t going to risk it.

That turned out to be a wise move, it rained quite heavily that night. Additionally, I slept better in there than I did in my hammock. So good, in fact, we spent our last night in there as well.

The rest of the day was spent fine tuning shelters and performing general tasks around camp. Boiling water, gathering food, etc. The boiling of water was a continuous process. Take dirty water, put it in the boiling vessel, boil it, pour it in the clean vessel. Over and over and over.

One fellow, Mickey, an old Israeli who now lives in Florida and now gives guided trips to the Ecuadorian interior,(Eco-Planet Adventures), was a total kick in the pants. He was crazy. He’d eat anything, and due to his heavy accent and don’t-give-a-damn-attitude, he always had something hilarious to say or do. He and Chance walked into camp with about 4 or 5 garter snakes. They proceeded to skin them, clean them, roast them and then eat them. I had one later in the trip and honestly, they aren’t to bad. A little bit bony, but surprisingly good flavor.

Mickey and the snake

Once the afternoon began winding down, Dave and Critt’r examined all the shelters, declared winners based on a few deciding factors and then gave us dinner. I’m not sure how I should put this, but with as few details as possible, we had a couple rabbits to share between us all… and they weren’t out of the freezer, if you know what I mean. I have no problem with it, but I’ll spare the details for some of our more sensitive viewers. They were dispatched humanely, cleaned, then roasted on the fire. It was the best rabbit I have ever eaten.

After my dinner consisting of some berries I had saved and a couple ounces of rabbit meat, the sleepiness set in. I retired to my new bed, consisting of layers of cedar boughs, dune grass, my wool blanket and then my sleeping bag. Something I failed to take into consideration was all the sand in the roots of the grass: Every time the frame was touched, a small trickle of sand would fall on a random spot on the floor.. or face. Oh well, I had my balaclava so I situated it to cover my eyes and I was good to go.

I slept on the inside, against the log. Ken on the outside. I ended up being so warm in there I had to take off my sweatshirt. I knew morning would come early.

Part 3

AKA: Four Days in the Bush With Dave Canterbury

Dave on Facebook

Dave’s pics of this weekend

Day 1 -

I had no idea what to expect. I had zero experience with Dave’s Pathfinder system and knowing that this was going to be and “advanced” class, I was actually a bit nervous. I was hoping that I could bluff my way through with the knowledge I already had from just growing up in the woods.

I had contacted him earlier about what to bring: “So, is there anything I should bring? Anything I shouldn’t bring?…” etc.

He tells me “Well this is an advanced class, we’ll be making just about everything we’ll be using, so the 5 C’s should just about do it.”

I thought, Great… WTF are the 5 C’s? So some research was in order. It turns out the 5 C’s are common everyday items that I carry all time as it is.

1. Cutting tool,(knife, machete etc) .
2. Combustion, (fire).
3. Cordage, (rope, twine etc).
4. Container, (something to cook in and store water in. It has to be metal so that you can actually stick in the fire).
5. Cover, (weather appropriate clothing and shelter: tent etc)

There are 5 additional C’s but those are just bonuses.

So, the day comes and I show up at our muster point, the Lake Quinault Lodge. I get there plenty early and there’s already one or two other guys there as well, though I had no idea that they were there for that and me being the introvert that I normally am, didn’t go around asking everyone “Are you here for the survival school?”

Soon enough though, a guy walks into the lodge and gathers us all up to head outside and muster up around the van and get our safety briefing. Here’s where my apprehension set in. Dave immediately said “Lose the food guys. Leave it all in your cars.” Awesome. I still wasn’t even sure of our final destination and had no idea of the resources we would have at hand. Since the description said it was in the Quinault, I had it in my head that we’d be up higher in the rain forest. At least there, I thought, I could get chantrelles and berries and such.

He continued on with the briefing: “You’re going to be hungry. You’re going to be thirsty. You’re going to be wet and tired. You are going to experience what it’s like being out in the wilderness with no grocery store down the road to run to when you’re hungry. If any of you have a problem with that, speak up now because it’s an hour and a half drive in there and nobody’s going to be too happy if you lose it and we have to haul you out of there.”

Holy crap, what am I doing?

We signed the liability waivers, piled into two vans and set off. About 20 miles down the road it turned to gravel. The van kept bottoming out and the brush encroached on the road, scraping down the sides of the van, tighter and tighter. We came to a bridge that looked like it was made from an old railroad flat-car. We crossed it and kept driving, eventually coming to the end of the drivable road. everyone piled out, gathered our packs and got ready to head out.

Dave gave another short briefing, pairing each of us up with another member of the class, explaining that having a partner in these situations helps maintain safety and the division of labor allows for more efficient use of time and resources. My partner for the weekend was a guy named Ken. He was from Longview, where I used to live, so we had that in common.

The general concensus of the entire group was that we had way more crap in our packs than we needed, but were still not prepared for what was coming. “Oh well,” I said, “I’d rather have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.”

Hiking down what was left of the old road we passed what was left of an old van that had fallen into a ditch and been abandoned. Ah, that’s why we parked at the top of the hill.

Soon the road turned to brushy overgrown trail. I was constantly on the lookout for resources and luckily there were salal berries fully ripe just lining the trail in spots. Shortly the trail opened up into a marshy looking area and then a large, flat sandy area which I figured, correctly, would be our new home for the next three and a half days.

We were told to get our camps set up and muster back up in about half an hour. Ken and I each brought hammocks so I set out for the tree-line to find the perfect spot. About 50 feet in there was an opening and trees spaced just far enough apart to accommodate us. We hung our hammocks and quickly made our way back to the main fire-pit.

Dave, Critt'r and Iris

Our first task. Dave explained that we are going to go by order of general priority in an emergency situation. First thing you need is fire. It can warm you, sterilize water, and overall, it’s a psychological boost that can help you make it through a stressful situation. Our task was to start primitive fire. No lighters, no magnesium/ferro rods, nothing but what you can find out here. That left the proverbial rubbing of sticks as our only option. There’s a couple ways to do this: Bow-drill, hand-drill and fire plow are the most common. Everyone went for the bow-drill option as it is the most reliable of the three. We were not allowed to do anything else until we started this fire.

As everyone scrambled to gather materials I took a moment to survey our area of operations. We were camped about 100 yards from the Pacific Ocean. There was a wide, slow moving river emptying into the ocean about 200 yards north. A large swampy marsh/estuary immediately inland and to the south was dense coniferous forest. At the mouth of the river was an island prominently marked with rock arches and a large tunnel in bisecting the main portion of it. It was a truly impressive area.

After I took it all in I gathered our needed supplies. A long flexible stick for the bow. A piece of paracord for the bowstring. A flat plank for the fireboard. A perfectly straight piece of wood for the spindle, and lastly, a fist sized rock with a dimple suitable to press down on the top of the spindle.

After carving the starting groove for the spindle, Ken and I set to work working that bow and spindle back and forth with all our might. I don’t know if any of you have ever started a fire this way, but it is not at all as easy as it seems. Some people got theirs going in as little as a half hour. Ken and I worked on it for probably 3 hours; sweat was pouring, my patience was rapidly waning, I was starting to get hungry.

Dave made an announcement: “Jason’s coming around with some food. It’s not much, but it’s some basic carbs to help you out.”

Cool, I couldn’t wait to see what it was… Jason came by our little operation and handed us a ziploc baggie with about a cup of uncooked rice in it. All I could think was, “Holy hell, you crafty bastards.” We needed fire.

Finally, after I would say about three and a half hours working at it, we got a viable little coal, dropped it carefully into the tinder bundle we so meticulously crafted, and started to gently blow. My heart lept when I saw that smoke growing. I blew and blew and before I knew it my fingers were burning in the flames. It felt so good. From this point on we could start fire by any means we wanted. Hello Bic.

Finally Fire

After the fire building came the next surprise. We needed to build a bowl from naturally found materials that could boil at least 16 ounces of water. For us that meant finding a piece of driftwood large enough to be burnt out in the style of a dug-out canoe, only a lot smaller.

We found the perfect piece of wood, brought it back to camp and began the hot, dirty process of putting coals on top of the wood, letting it burn a while, dumping it off and scraping away the charred wood. Over and over and over. It wasn’t so bad though, sitting by the fire visiting with all the new friends, getting to know each other because we were in this together.

Making the bowl

Simultaneously to everything else going on, we needed water. The river was tidal and even at the strongest part of the out-going tide it was too salty. The same with the marsh. We settled for a stagnant pool someone had found up in the woods. There was no discernable movement of the water, but we had spent so much energy, we needed hydration. The water hauling and boiling was an ongoing process. Each group had designated dirty and clean containers to avoid cross contamination, and eventually we outpaced ourselves and resorted to drinking the water fairly warm, before it had time to cool. It tasted nasty but it was very much needed.

Crit’r brought in a salmon and we roasted it in Native style: Stuck it on a stick with supporting cross-members.  It was delicious, but by no means filled us up.

Salmon on the fire

By this time it was getting late, everyone was shuffling off to bed so Ken and I followed suit. I put one last pile of coals and wood in our bowl, picked it up and used it as a torch to light our way back to the hammocks in the trees. I stoked it one more time as I hung my pack on a tree under the tarp, crawled into my sleeping bag and into the hammock. I was beat. I think I was asleep in about 2 minutes after getting situated.

Today was one hell of a trial by fire, if you know what I mean. Who the hell knew what the morning would bring. We would soon find out.

Read part two here