sorry for the delay, i will put all of the parts together in the end like i did with the “ice fishing” posts.

 

The glass buttes knap-in (day two)

Friday, march 25, 2011

Well we woke up at 6 in the morning and were on the I-5 by 6:30. The sky was a dark greenish gray and it seemed like the sky was sticking to the ground in some places. In some places the road was covered in a thick blanket of fog. It made the car seem like it was moving in slow motion. I only caught one little glimpse of the sunrise and it was a narrow band of pink clouds in between the horizon and the thick, low fog level. It was only visible as the car went over a rise in the highway, before the forest hid it again.

Gradually the sky lightened, turning into a soft blue before turning the light gray of a rainy winter day.

For the first hour or so we had the highway all to ourselves and made good time.

At around 8:30 we got lost for the first time. When we crossed the boarder into Oregon the  numbers on the exit signs started to get larger without us knowing so we thought we had missed the exit that we needed.  Taking advantage of this anya went to a drive-thu coffee stand and got a big old espresso. By the time we figured out how to get back onto the interstate the traffic caught up with us.

Another confusing bit was to try and cut through the little town before crossing the mountain pass. This time we didn’t really get lost, only didn’t know which way was the right way.

After a bit of zig zagging and following cars with snowboards on their roofs we got onto the highway wich led through the mountain pass.

The whole way through the road was bare but with a lot of new snow coming down.

It was quite a nice, smooth road. That is until we passed the summit. From then on the road deteriorated into a mass of large crevasses and pot holes where sections the size of a small car were gouged out of the middle of the road. It was a real tire wrecker to say the least.

When we finally got out of the mountain pass –all four tires intact- we were greeted by the wintery landscape of the interior of Oregon. It snowed lightly all through the desert but stopped at around 11 when we made it to Bend. We stopped at a super market there and stocked up on camping goodies. It always amuses me to see all of the toxic junk food in the stores down in the states. Packed full of aspartame, bad fats and various other chemicals to make the food taste delicious while slowly killing you.

Once we got onto highway 20 we knew we needed to go for 70 miles down the road, but that didn’t stop me from getting excited about every butte that we past.  It always happens like that.

“oh is that the butte???”  I ask while bouncing up and down in the passenger seat.

“i..   I don’t think so”    …     “I remember that butte we’ve tried there. no its not the glass butte we have another 45 minutes on this road”

5 minutes pass

“are you suuuurrrre???”

“yes”

“okaaayyy”

every time  xP

We finally found the buttes and first thing we did was set up camp right by a little creek and in a little sheltered horseshoe shape of cypress trees.

Once the camp was set up it was time for us to go on a walk in the buttes, we walked southwest from our little valley camp ground, over hills in search of the elusive obsidian (its everywhere on the ground.) so I filled up my pack with some nice small cobles and came back to camp. After knapping for a good 40 minutes I had 5 performs and it was time for a nice bowl of chilly. Speaking of chilly, the whole time at the buttes so far, the temperature was just above freezing but as soon at the sun went behind the mountain or the clouds, it dropped below zero quickly, down to about minus 12.

So after out bellies were full we went over to see the people of the knap in. there was a tarp strung in between two trees to block the wind. the other direction had a steep hill with a few more cypress trees which blocked the wind from the south. In the center of the area was a big fire which did a really good job of warming the area. We found out that the day that we got there all of the people had left that morning. They heard that a big storm was coming through and that they were calling for 4 inches of snow. We also met two people who had brought a couple of horses. They had a TP set up and it was a real site to see. So I talked to them for a while and then headed back to the fire. While there I made two nice 8 inch blades out of dacite.  Which was supplied by the man who held the knap in that year. By the end of the second it was getting dark so I went back to the tent and crawled into my sleeping bag.

I closed my eyes listening to the sounds of the high desert. Snow was tinkling down on the tent making slight tapping sounds. Every once in a while a just of wind would hit the tent blowing the thin layer of snow that had accumulated off into the desert. Later on the wind picked up for a while and it felt like we were going to be blown away.

A lone coyote started to yip breaking the silence of the desert another one called from further away. After about half an hour I fell asleep.

What a great day.

first off thank you for getting me over the 1000 view marker..  i know it doesnt sound like much but its a milestone in my books..

over the past few weeks i decided to try my hand at making some larger points out of the preforms that i have been so religiously making. here’s what i came up with:

a dovetail (possibly the best point i have ever made) a folsom-clovis cross, and my first attempt at a winachee clovis!

 

CLICK ON THE PHOTOS FOR HIGH RES. IMAGES! (they fill your screen!)

hover the mouse over the first photo of a point for a more detailed description.

enjoy…

 

the dovetail:

midnight lace dovetail

midnight lace dovetail, photograph edited to show flake scars

backlit obsidian spear point

backlit beauty

side view to show thinness of the dovetail

obsidian dovetail sketch showing detailed flaking

 

the folsom/clovis:

a folsom-clovis cross

 

intermediate clovis: backlit

clovis-folsom sketch to show detailed flaking

 

and finally the winachee clovis:

my first winachee clovis, made out of "pumkin" or mahogany obsidian.

have a good one, and thanks for looking!

the teenage caveman.

heat treated slade stone mini dalton

mini dalton

princeton super heated chert point on cooked slade stone

princeton super heated chert point

perdenales point made out of a floor tile!

 

thanks for looking..  i took a couple more photos of points that i need to upload.

talk to y’all soon

 

the teenage caveman

On Sunday I woke up at 8:00 and I started cleaning my coop. that was 2 hours well spent I vacuumed out the whole place because I found a couple mouse terds..    I have no idea how they got in there but the buggers did.  The next time I’m up there I’ll be setting up some traps.   I left my coop and had some breakfast, packed a sandwich and went on a walk out to the same place I had gone the day before, this time with Maully.

foggy morning

here's how much the river went up since yesterday

We made it to my little rock wall and I loaded up another backpack. Another thing I did was I filled a jam jar with clay accumulating at the foot of the hill. Hopefully it will make some good pottery clay.

at the rock/slime wall

I then headed up the steep snowy bank behind and to the side of the white rocks. Finally I took Maully off of her leash to go and run in the wild.

the view from up top

I was following a deer trail and then I caught a glimpse of this giant orange block of jasper. Oh man I was so excited!! I scrambled up to it and the thing probably weighed 400 pounds.

the huge chunk of jasper

closer

I was just getting a big rock to start whacking some spalls off when I heard a low growling coming from behind me. Uh-oh….        I slowly turned around and there I saw two dogs. They were mangy domestic dogs. I once encountered one of them while walking before.    They then started barking whenever I started moving. Slowly I the one on the left started creeping up the hill towards me, while the other one kept barking. When I would turn and look at the one that was stalking up the hill it would stop and pretend to look away. I called Maully to sit beside me so that she could scare off the other dogs if it came to it. After about 3 or 4 minutes I heard a person come out of their house. Then the voice said “HEY SHUT UP! COME ‘ERE!!” the dogs didn’t move.  They kept barking.    After a little while I said “HELLO THERE! IS THIS YOUR PROPERTY?”

” Well.  YEAH” he said back

“OH I’M JUST GOING FOR A WALK…”

“THROUGH THAT SHIT??”

“YEAH I’M FOLLOWING A DEER TRAIL.”

“OH OKAY DON’T WORRY THEY WON’T BITE”

He then called again and one of the dogs slowly walked back down to the house before he slammed his truck door and drove away.   The one that was stalking me unfortunately wasn’t the one that ran back down. I decided not to hit the boulder of knappable rock and save my skin.    Not that the dog would have killed me but I think the guy who was yelling at me could have been bad.

that mangy dog's footprint

As I was walking away the little stealthy dog followed my trail for a good 15 minutes until I finally went down and crossed a road. I’m just glad I had Maully on that little trip. Once I got home I warmed my toes and packed up all of my stuff into the truck.

just passing through hope on the way back

flooded farm

a chiliwack sunset

my last bit of light

That was the end of my prehistoric weekend. I didn’t get much done but I did get more than I thought I would, and a few pretty pictures.

Thanks for reading!

The teenage caveman

Well last night I downloaded an alarm clock for my computer to wake me up but it didn’t work so I woke up at 9:30. Guh…  I got up and lit a fire in the wood stove and ate some breakfast. After I brushed my teeth and walked around the yard for a while I decided to head out to take some photos of the river and Allison flats. Here’s what I came up with:

the tulameen is melting!

AHA! deer sign

ice on the river

gotta look for rocks!!

mini ice flow

whispers of birdies once past

the brown bridge

yes i found a rock!!

rocks!!

amazing white stone right out of the ground!!

rainbow water stream. it was awesome, from different angles it would go throught the hole spectrum.. really something

green slime!

red slime!!

peek-a-boo!

looking from the side of the old bridge towards the ice rink

ice jam

personal icebergs

princeton BC

another nice deer track in the middle of the city

and a temperature reading

Later on I went out driving with my dad and we got some fishing in down old Hedley road. I fell through the ice and then my dad really fell through. I cut down a nice maple stave and then it was time to head home.

Right now I’m sitting at the fire and warming my legs. What a fun day so far I got three of the things I wanted to do done! Now I’m heading out to the wild to build myself a snow shelter. If I don’t come back you’ll know that a cougar ate me.

 

 

Well I wasn’t eaten and I didn’t get trapped in the dark snowy wilderness. I made it out alive but I have to say I did a very poor job of “surviving”. I think I probably would have froze to death had I not been 15 minutes away from the road. While I was out I found a well-used deer trail and a few cat tracks. I don’t know if they were small cougar tracks or bobcat tracks. It was very peaceful out there with the soft rain patting on the trees. My footsteps were deafening while at the same time almost muffled.  I followed the narrow track until I ran into a trail that a couple of people had walked earlier on, at some point after the last snow fall. At one point underneath a huge spruce, there were pitch stalactites.

bobcat track

clay bank

either a sap sucker or a shotgun

sap-lactites

more spruce sap

 

I walked the track and then went to            1111111111111111111111

---

             v SSAQZS                        ha-ha Maully sat her head on my keyboard.   Anyways I walked the trail and then saw an opening in the creek ice so I thought I’d look for some knappables.  Here’s what I came up with:

Later I found this guy stuck in the ground underneath an over hanging tree in the riverbank. When I hit it with my rock hammer it threw a shower of sparks so I successfully found a sparking stone, which would be a potential life saver.

This is around the time where I fell into the creek the first time. My left foot was soaked up to my calf so I took my boot off, rang out my sock and put it all back on again. It wasn’t long before my foot was warm again but I knew that it was only temporary warmth.

As I was walking, I was keeping an eye out for potential bow trees and shrubs. Around half way through my walk I found this bad boy, a beautiful bundle of maple sticks and this one straight branch just begging to be turned into a bow. I chopped ‘er down and I had a walking stick for the rest of my trip. I walked along my little valley until it got a little dark, and then I headed up one side to find a place to make a snow shelter. The first thing I did was to build up the walls of my snow fort and to dig out a patch for a floor. I made the end bit all covered up but the light was dying. After getting about a quarter of the way done I had to stop and head home. If I am to survive in the snowy woods ill need to get an earlier start and find a more efficient way of making a shelter. So In short my foot was wet and I had half a shelter. I would have been rained on and I would have had a very cold night but I probably wouldn’t have frozen to death, purely do to the fact that now in the pitch black it is still 3 above.

On the walk back I was racing for daylight, the little valley that I had walked in from was now shrouded in darkness. It was still relatively light out on the ridge that I was walking on and I was trying to get home as fast as I could. I crossed through a thicket of underbrush with my bulky pack and into a clearing. I walked past a little shrub and made it about 7 or 8 steps past when I heard a whooping sound that was as loud as a helicopter from right behind my back. I spun around as fast as I could, thinking it was some fierce animal but found nothing. The shrub I had passed was rocking up and down as if something swooped in and pushed it down without leaving any tracks in the snow. I had no idea what it was so naturally assumed a witch or a ghost did it. It was most likely a ruffed grouse perching in the shrub that I scared up, but I think I would have seen it.  Needless to say I sped up considerably after that and was down on the final stretch of creek before I knew it. I just had to cross the creek one last time. “Not a problem!” I thought to my self. I took one step heard a faint pooping sound and then I was in the creek with both feet. Soaked up to my knees on both sides. Buuuurrr!! Pure snow melted frozen over creek water. Man that was a surprise. After I leaped up and across the creek I scrambled up the steep muddy slope and onto the safe road. “Ah made it out alive.”

On the walk home there were a couple deer out nibbling on the lilacs in someone’s front yard. The yearling was quite curious about me but the mother seemed weary.

I was greeted at home with a delicious feast of chicken, Brussels sprouts, bacon, carrots and brown rice.  Nothing like eating a massive amount of food after trudging through deep snow for hours

Right now I’m warming my toes by the fire with a full belly and a big smile on my face. I’m going to go get a brownie!