But I sit with some of the folks who are at the flit knap, old timers with 30 years of experience knocking rocks around. They are patient, thoughtful. We sit around a smoky fire, glass rock shards in a riot of color scattered in piles everywhere, under an aging Juniper tree. The blue berries reflect the clear blue sky; blue on blue that we've missed west of the Cascades.
Photo taken by Reverend Blue Sky.
Read MoreWe discuss why I think the bird might have been startled. We consider the behavior of other birds we have seen that morning; how they pop up from the ground and land on a tree limb above us, but do not flee before us as we walk. They are used to people in this area. They do not seem scared of us, just cautious. I mention that my interpretation has much of myself in it. This is new; this kind of tracking is deep. Much deeper than counting toes and looking for claw marks. Much has changed since September.
Read MoreBut this Tuesday is different. "Follow me, Gentlemen." And the men pick themselves up from their post-lunch reverie and follow. This is not a serious ask--we are moving some pieces of wood a few hundred feet, dropping it off at the location where I will spend 36 hours--Tuesday night to Thursday morning. I have spent a half day sawing away at a fallen Big Leaf Maple tree, processing it to be used in my overnight sit-spot. The wood is, for the most part, already bundled and ready to be carried. Still. I do not hesitate to assert myself. They do not hesitate to follow.
Photo taken by Cameron MacPhail during a trip to Eel Creek earlier in the year.
Read MoreWe've spent the day burrowing into a snowbank, four little rabbit warrens against the bulk of Mount Hood. We piled up the snow all day, tamping it down with our snowshoes, with ourselves--flinging our whole bodies on top of the mounds to compress and sinter the snow. We dug into our mounds, excavating the snow inside and piling it on top, then built shelves along the sides and covered those in fir boughs. We have little shelves for our candles, air holes, a wall to block the entrance from wind, the works. We have only one casualty--a broken shovel. I hang up my snow-encrusted wool poncho to block the door entrance. Testing out our little hidey hole in the afternoon, still warm from the exertion of construction, it seems stable enough, and almost cozy. My partner crawls inside and disappears for twenty minutes, recovering from the expenditure of building the thing.
Photo taken by Reverend Blue Sky.
My spindle goes flying out in a random direction and, in the resulting loss of leverage, I crack myself in the head with the stick I'm holding in my left hand. I sit down with a thump, eyes watering, glasses akimbo. Smoke pours off my spindle and board, sweat drips down the small of my back, but as of yet--no coal.
"It's just so easy, isn't it? Like all the skills we've learned this year." Cameron smirks a little at me, his own lack of success evident as he packs up his bow-drill kit, minus a coal. Cameron knows this magic, though. He earned himself a couple of coals the week before. Still, this work is humbling. He might have turned the trick once or twice, but he hasn't achieved consistency--yet.
Photo taken by See at Oaks Bottom.
Sometimes we bring a lot of our outside lives into the woods. Sometimes, we get lucky enough to work through those challenges there. And sometimes, we're even smart enough to leave that stuff out in the woods, buried under a tree, so that all the things we carry* can absorb back into the great, green, glowing sphere of life instead of pushing us down into grief and misery.
Photo taken a very long time ago, somewhere in the Beartooths, probably by Rebecca Williams.
Read MoreEveryone else has tripped off to a little patch of woods somewhere, bow drill kit in hand, to find a place they want to be in for a solo overnight under a tarp shelter. Grey, after our feedback last week, has decided that he needs to create the need for us to learn bow drill. This skill was introduced early on, but only one student has repeated the magic trick more than once and gone from coal to fire. I myself have trouble making smoke, let alone a coal. Hence, a solo day and a night where we tend a fire through that 24 hour period. And not eat, apparently.
Photo taken by Morgan Spalding on a personal snowboarding trip to Mt Hood.
Read MoreI pulled some black crud out of my ear a few minutes ago. My right forearm aches. My right thumb sports a blister that's becoming a callus. The first three fingers of my left hand are enshrouded in bandages from where I grabbed my own hot tongs earlier (douse your tools before you go to put them away, ok kids?). I'm roasted, dehydrated, and sore. I'm ecstatic.
Photo taken by Laura.
About ten hours later, you'll have a container capable of holding hot water, as well as some well-roasted rocks. Fill your container with water, then drop your hot rocks in, one by one. When you see bubbles, add enough rocks to maintain the boil for at least two minutes.
Photo taken by Cameron MacPhail.
Read MoreFantasy survivalist visions: thoroughly squelched. We spent Tuesday and Wednesday night in a shelter we built ourselves, and the most that can be said for the experience is that nobody died of hypothermia.
Photo taken by Grey.
Read MoreThe spindle of my fire bow goes spinning off in a random direction. The cord pops off the end of the bow. I lean too far in one direction or another and my hand slips, or the board under my foot wiggles too much and everything falls apart. My knee hurts. My back hurts. My shoulder hurts. My wrist hurts.
Photo taken by Mae Mae.
Read MoreFour of us lay in the grass, a pile of exhausted puppies cuddled up in the dappled sunlight. We gaze through the wheeling maple leaves above, shards of blue sky trickling through like fractals from an earlier time.
Photo taken by Laura at Brec.
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