New Years on the Mountain

Sunshine Beach in December

A simple tarp, don't leave home with out one

Question, what can keep your dry in the rain, warm in the cold, cool in the sun, collect rain water for drinking, be converted into a stretcher, signal for help in times of emergency, and endless other thing, a tarp. I personally consider a tarp just part of my survival gear. On every day hike, hunt, backpack, snow shoe, and ski trip I pack a light weight nylon tarp and para-cord. Quick and simple to setup I can be out of the rain or sun in minutes. I keep my tarp or hoochie rigged at all times to aid in quick setup. Using a para-cord ridge line and para-cord guide lines I can pitched it anywhere I have at least one high point or one trekking poll. For the ridge line I use a klemhiest knot, a cousin to the prusik. If staking out the sides I will use a stakes that have extra large cord loops. This allows me to us a prusik knot to tension the line. A prusik holds better in wind then a any sliding hitch. When anchoring the guidelines to a object a highway mans knot is the only way to go. Quick and simple to untie and never slips on the stormiest days. Tarps are light, cheap, and common. There is not need to eat meals in the rain or bake in the hot sun during a rest break.

A winter day on the bay

Eating Sea Food by the Sea Shore

Dishes done and camped picked up for the night I sat down next to the fire and lit the evenings cigar. With in a few minutes of the lantern being snuffed a raccoon climbed the picnic table and start to help its self to the live clams in my plastic bucket. Shining my flash light gave the animal a pause but only long enough to give me the evil eye. As I had spent the better part of the afternoon working the mud flats for my clams I was not giving anything away. I jumped to my feet and banged a piece of firewood on the table. The raccoon ran off. A few pieces of wood later my cigar was finished and so was the evening. I placed the rest of my firewood on the top of the bucket, check the campsite, and headed to bed. 

As the side door of the van opening I spot trash on the ground. I had not left any trash out, what the hell. Noticing the cooler and the tupperware on the ground I realized I had been robed. Robed by a raccoon or two. The buggers crawled into the cooler and cleaned me out. Paprika beef and rice, bagged salad, Dr. Pib poached chicken, a full package of hot dogs, and my breakfast egg bagel. Maybe I should have just let them eat the clams... After cleaning up the mess I packed camp, cracked the morning soda and head for the boat dock. I had dropped a crab trap the afternoon before. With any luck I would be having fresh crab for breakfast, I'd be ok with that. 

Launching the canoe into the Nehalem Bay I had just as many looks as the day before. Out of the eight crabs in the pot two were keepers, breakfast. Boiling the crabs the sun started to warm the air. Perhaps the best breakfast had on the coast that day.

 

Moving down the coast I settled in at Netarts Bay. Paying the $3 day use fee I unloaded the canoe, rigged the crab trap, and strapped the dog into his life vest. Paddling out I crossed several shallow bars before tossing my crab pot over. Traversing the bay and stretching my legs on the far beach the current from the out going tide started to pickup. Having little experience paddling in a coastal bay I made the unfortunate mistake of not cutting a crossed the current and floating into the launch. Rather I followed the line of the beach paddling with the current, planning to cross over at the mouth. Closing on the mouth I could see the water rushing out of the bay making turn the realization of my mistake set in. Like all sins I would have to pay my penitance. It would take me almost a hour to travel hundred and fifty yard tacking crossed the current. It was exhausting and unstopping work. If I stopped paddling for only the shortest of time I would slipped several yards down current.

 

Reaching the boat ramp I wobbled as I got out of the canoe, legs of jello. Giving the dog fresh water and storing the gear we set down the beach on feet as we waited for the tided to fully recede. Later when I would go to retrieve my trap I would learn from my lesson and paddle the slip water along the steep rocky bank. My crab pot would never be found. I looked until well pasted dark. Putting red and green glow sticks on the bow and wearing my headlamp. Perhaps I missed it, perhaps another fisherman pulled it up, or perhaps and most likely I had set the pot on a bar that was exposed at low tide. Regardless the pot and rigging wear gone. This time I would float into the launch perfectly.

Pulling off the road a mile and half or so down the bay and with a glow stick tied to my van mirror and one around the dogs neck we started clamming, To this point I had only been clamming a few times before in my life and never in the dark. The lantern lit the way crossing the mud flats. For two hours I wondered around looking for clams and maybe my crab pot. Crossing pools of water and sinking in soup like mud. Four cockles, one bay clam, and 3 razor clams was my haul. Not bad for a new comer I should think. At times the experience was a little nerve racking. With a light fog in the air and unfamiliar grounds I was grateful for my glow stick dangling from my mirror. It gave me a point of reference, let me know how far out and north or south I was from safety. As my fears of tide raising around me set in it was time to call it a night. 

Why Wool?

Because it really is the best and in the spirit of Letterman I have created a top ten list of the reason to wear wool.

1. It does not melt when you get close to a fire, or drop a cigar ash on it.
2. It will be warm even when wet.
3. It wicks moister away from your body.
4. There is no swirling, swishing, when you move or walk.
5. When they are done shearing the sheep there are tasting meat to eat.
6. Well made wool is soft and comfy.
7. No one ever says “I can't believe its not wool”
8. It has worked for all great explores
9. Wool biodegrades
10. Timeless Style

The squirrel I stalked, the eyes that glowed, and a walk in the flog

Elk Camp 2011

Cashe Meadows was a quick two miles hike away however I would take much longer. Having packing sandwiches, cashews, and some cheese I planned to be gone for a little over eight hours. Slow walking the trail, and then sitting in a make shift hide in on the meadows edge. I had been hunting hard for two days, two I would walk the high way of the woods.

Thump, thump and a rustling branches stopped me cold. Raising my binoculars I scanned the forest. Thump, thump, rustle, rustle I heard again. Slipping out of my pack I started my stalk. Fairly sure it was not an Elk my desired quarry , perhaps a black bear having a conversation with a stump. Slow I walked feeling each step before placing my foot. The sound grew closer as I moved, whatever it was it was not moving. I checked the wind, my favor. The forest went quit, I slowed and paused. Thump, thump, rustle again. The noise was coming from the top of a tree. Perhaps a bear? Standing almost under the tall full tree a pine cone hit my pack. Two more fell as I realized that I had spent the last 30min. stalking a Gray Squirrel collecting pine cones. My laughter that followed the colorful metaphors the laughter cleared the forest. 

Eating a late lunch at Cache Meadow the stillness and the sound of the grass were of note. Finding a spot with good cover and favoring the wind I set a small field blind and settled in my cozy extra layers. My blind over looked a feed area and a watering hole with plenty of fresh sign. Comfortable, warm and having a full belly I feel asleep, just me the trees. Lucky I don't snore as I awoke to a very distinctive sound that of an animal feeling on low glassy vegetation. It was coming from my left and loud enough to have woken me up. I could not see the animal though the thick vegetation but it was maybe 10ft. away. There was no way I could move out of the blind with out making a lot of noise, so I waited. I still don't no why but the animal spooked and took of at full steam and out of the area. Dark was closing in and the smell of the Meadow was starting to wear. I packed up, downed a liter of water and prepared for the dark foggy walk back. With the fall of night the settling of the fog had began.

My view on the return trip

Visibility was not bad for the first time as my headlight caught the eyes in the woods. They were blue, round and small like glowing blue dolls eyes. Close together and ruffly three feet off the ground my brain knew it was a deer. Some how my hand flipped the safety on my rifle to fire. I would see a total of five sets of blue eyes and a set of yellow. Seeing all of them as I ascended to the plateau. The fog was hit and miss on the way up. At times it was hard to see more then ten feet. Hundred yards or so past the first set of eyes I shouldered my rifle. With each set of eyes or pairs of eyes I would stop. Watching there reaction. At times I would see deer bedded right next to each other. Leading me to this question. Do deer have friends. Why were some bed alone and others in pairs?

Reaching the plateau the fog grew thick. The spider webs under the tree fungus glowed as the light reflected off the water drop lets. At times looking like a seen out of the movie Avatar. Whole logs would light up as if bioluminescent. The rest of my journy back I would not see more then twenty feet and at times as little as three. Though the rocky cliff areas it was a bit unsettling. Gracefully I had brought my best headlamp and was on an established trail. By far the coolest, funnest, and most enjoyable night hike I have ever been on.

Dinner

The Ollallie Oasie

Ollallie Butte

Waking to the pitter patter on vent of the van I knew it was raining and that I was moving camp again. Having never been down the Olllallie Lake way and looking for something new I loaded, put on the oldies, and set the cruise at 25mph.. Taking the 42 passed the Timothy Lake turn and historical ranger station. Skirting the warm springs reservation boundary and not 35min. down the road I passed a ODFW tracking truck. A miles or so later I passed a ODFW field tech with a potable tracking receiver. I now wish I would have slowed and asked what they were tracking. Anyway I also passed several hunting camps a long the way, a few looking very wet.

The road giving way from asphalt to gravel the van rattled, squeaked and lumbered along. As I approached the lake a sign read resort close, so much for the hope of a warmer shower. As I rounded the lake I forgot about a hot shower and I took my first view of Mt. Jefferson, realized I had the lake to myself, that the sun had come out, It was fantastic. A natural mountain lake, with dead standing timber still lake side, rocky bouldery bottom, water so clear you could see 30ft down, and a snow covered butte in the background. It did not take long to find a place to call home.

With the sun out with its blue sky backing and having unloaded the canoe I took to the lake. Paddling its perimeter there were only the fantist signs of the lakes undoubtedly high use in the summer. As I neared the south end of the lake I pulled the canoe in. Pushing over and bucking two dead standing snags. This was quality hot dog cooking wood.

Firewood collection the fun way!

Returning back to camp the dark clouds I had seen rolling over the mountain like big waves on the North Shore of Oahu had almost arrived. My blue sky was gone and there was still fire wood to attend to and the matter of a bath. Having hung my tarp and prepared all the fire wood for the evening I gathered small tinder. Four strikes of the flint on steel and a spark took hold in the char cloth. Placing the ember in my tinder bundle and coaxing it to life as if giving CPR it ignited. Once I had gotten a good base fire it was time for a bath. The rain had started in starts and stops and the tempiture had dropped. The lake ice cold and the water in my solar shower only slightly warmer I opted for slightly warmer. I got though washing my hair before tapping out. The last of the two hot dogs eating, camp policed, I settled into the fire.

 

And that is were I found myself, fireside writing this. The sound of the rain on the tarp as it lifts and falling with the wind, a crackle of the burning wood. I sit in my camp chair on a wool blanket to keep my back warm. A glass of tang and a bottle of scotch -single malt- on my archery target repurposed as a end table. Lamenting the fact that in order to be in this place or one like it on my own now is when I must make the journey. A cold, rainy, fall nigh. No stars to be seen, but no other campfires either. It would be easy to say bloody hell I am going home. To be trapped most of the year in the comforts and convenience that home brings. While so many reflect upon there short summer and remember the things they wanted to do, they wish they could have done, or had done and so baddy want to do again. I will reflect upon the next quite and scenic place to sip my scotch smoke my cigars and gather warmth from a campfire.