This is not a survival plan per se. When I was a teen I established a camp which I considered a BOL. It is located in some of the only wild land in the county. Since then the county bought a load of that land and established a public park. Fortunately my camp was not in that parcel. In the past 30 years the county has added to the park property. I remain lucky that the camp is still not in the park.

Ive decided to revive my camp as a place to practice my primitive and bushcraft skills. Herein is my journal of activities there.

12-Feb-2012

On this trip I came out to explore the area again. I took some snaps to show the 3 key features. The "Workshop", the "Spring" and the "Cabin". Each of these features was once a significantly improved aspect. Above is a photo of the Workshop. It consists of a fairly flat area in the vertex of a ravine. All that remains is the fire ring. There is quite a load of dead fall to clear.

The Spring has changed so much over 30 years. That pipe is on the dam I built back then. The depression behind the dam is now about 6 feet long. Back then it was only 3 or 4 feet. I had a piece of wash tub which had the bottom cut out to be a crock. It was surrounded by rocks giving a deep spot and surrounding shallow area. The crock depth was about 12 inches. The shallow area was only a few inches.

I will have to get all that dead fall out and muck out the rotted leaves. I want to build this up much better than I had it back then. I look forward to carrying a ton or two of rock. NOT! Well, that is what it is going to take. I need to control the erosion and get a cover over it all so I don't have to muck it out all the time.

The water flow varies through out the year. Right now it is flowing at 7.5 Liters per minute!

The cabin is nearly gone. The depression to the upper left was once a dug out with wickerwork / rammed earth walls. It had a roof made of staves and branches thatched with leaves.

The back wall had a fireplace with a 12" by 12" opening. It chimney was a tunnel up through the hillside that terminated through a hollow stump a la Lost Boys.

Back then it was 6 ft by 6 ft. Just large enough for a 14 year old to camp in. I look forward to rebuilding the cabin but this time Im going for 8 ft by 10 foot with a sort of masonry heater / fireplace. Ugh! more rock to carry, and a couple hundred pounds of clay too. Only about 100 yards to a nice clay bank!

30 - FEB - 2012

Late start for the hike out. I did not get to the camp til 3 pm. The BOB was fully loaded with my homemade hydration bladder filled to 3L. It is needing some work, though, the fill plug leaks around the hose still as the wet spot showed.

The goal for this trip was to do some basic cleaning of the Spring. Some of the logs were pretty heavy. I used a Kochanski winch to pull the worst ones out. I've been packing out a rubber welcome mat. This is great for kneeling on beside the spring without getting my knees all water logged. Further spring cleaning is going to have to wait for April or May when the temps are up to a nicer degree. Then I will feel OK to get IN the water and really clean it up.

10-MAR-2012

Got out for an early start, 10:30am. Hehe, that is early for me on a weekend. Packed out the new Gerber Gator III saw. The chainsaw blade was very disappointing. It broke too easily on one of the first few cuts. A little lateral torsion was all it took.

The goal for this trip was to clean up the Workshop and build a cache for tools I will want to leave in camp. I don't fancy hiking out every time with a spade, a mattock and a bucket or 2. The cache doesn't have to be very large, but it does have to be inconspicuous. Even though the camp is not on the park property, there is nothing except distance to keep visitors out. The camp is about 100 yrds from the nearest trail. From that trail, one can not see the camp.







I built the cache as a lean-to debris shelter. Were this a shelter for human capacity I would have designed it differently. Since it is just for tools, I left it small. I will add a plastic ground cover. I will likely make the plastic 3 times the open area so it can also cover over the tools.

15-APR-2012

Tax Day! I dawdled through the morning and finally got past my block. Taxes never take me very long. It actually took longer to debug my printer than it took to file taxes. With that out of the way I had to reward myself with a nice hike out to the camp. It is nice having the BOB set up all the time. Last night I put in the two 3L hydration bladders I got recently. While holding the BOB in my hand, that 13.2 pounds the water adds is pretty sensible. Six liters is a bit of overkill. There is little more to add to my BOB but it weighs in at about 50lb now. I think I will empty one of the bladders to accommodate the items yet to add. The empty bladder will be there as the purification vessel for the next day's water. Then all I have to do is switch the drink tubes in and out. Look for the review video for the hydration bladder on my YT channel.

The goal for today's outing was to make a tamper for ramming earth. Part of the cabin construction is going to be a rammed earth wall. Remember I am not taking any modern tools to the camp if they are not part of my BOB or unless I can fabricate them from materials at hand. To make the tamper I need a base with a good sized footprint and a handle. There is a windblown birch in camp with a diameter of about 6 inches. It is actually ovoid in cross section, which I found to be beneficial for the tool. There were about 12 feet of branches that needed to be processed before I could get to the section of trunk I wanted. The lumber pile had a few additions as well and the kindling pile. Out of one of those branches I cut a nice straight piece about 3 feet long. With a 1.5 inch diameter, it feels much like a sledgehammer handle. Next came cutting the base out of the trunk.

The manual chainsaw tends to bind near the end of the cut so I decided to make the effort to keep the saw flatter. To do this I used a nearby sapling to be a spring pole. (click the image to see high res) The angle of attack was still too sharp so I set a redirect nearby. With the 2.75mm cord running from the sapling through the redirect and to the saw I could hold the work with one hand and operate the saw with the other. It was much easier to make the cuts solo this way.

Next, I used my Gerber Gator III to cut a dovetail mortise in the base piece. It was more difficult to do this than I imagined. The coarse blade in the saw is pretty flexible. The saw kept shying off course forcing me to cut slowly. I found I got the best control by pulling the cuts. Not having a chisel, I made multiple cross cuts with the saw to open the mortise up. A little finish work with my lock blade and the mortise was done. The dovetail tenon on the handle was simple to carve. With little refinement it fit through the mortise to the depth that I wanted.

Not only will I be able to tamp the earth to make forward wall of the cabin, but the joint is so strong it is going to be a nice mallet for driving the stakes for the basketwork.




12-May-2012

Another weekend to defer working ON the camp. This time Camp was on location for a Zombie Preparedness video shoot.