Chapter 6: The Cave

I will boldly admit it now; I am not a good survivalist. I know you are probably well aware of this (having read of my exploits so far), but I seriously thought I had this project under control at first. In retrospect, I’m sure when I tell this story, there will be people interjecting, “You did what?!” or “You went where?!” or maybe even “You stuck what in where?!” Okay, perhaps not that last one, but this trip is turning out to be more a series of “how to fail at survival but get lucky enough not to die” instead of “modern bastard learns all about taking a dump in the woods,” or even less, “redneck conquers the world.” This may seem obvious, but I assure you, the story has barely started.

I woke up with my feet in the water. The rain had raised the level of the river, and with the very shallow bank that had brought the water inland several meters—almost up to my campfire. I had been too stupid to realize this and had built my fire in the nearest convenient place. So now I was not just wet in the dark in the rain, I was wet in the dark and in the rain with soaked boots. The fire had gone out, and any dry wood I had collected was soaked.

I flipped the tarp onto the ground to create an area that was only really damp instead of soaked through. I removed both boots, poured the water out of each, and changed my socks before putting them back on. Ideally, I would change them again in a few hours as they soaked up the moisture from the boot, but I only had two pairs. I wrung the wet pair out as well as possible and hung them inside my waistband, hoping my body heat would help them dry out. There wasn’t anywhere drier than anywhere else. I was already awake, so I figured I’d walk until I found somewhere dry or until the rain eased off.

It was several hours of slow hiking before the rain stopped, but that didn’t make my surroundings any drier, so I walked through the rest of the night. I didn’t see any animals and wasn’t paying much attention to edible plants, so it was a very tired, hungry, and discouraged Chester who ate another precious food bar and watched the sunrise. With the temperature rising, all I wanted to do was get out of my wet clothes, so I did just that. I rolled the tarp back out over a relatively flat, sun-facing rock and staked it in place (I wasn’t trusting the weather again for quite some time). I stripped and laid all my wet clothes out on one side of the tarp and laid my pale, naked body out on the other. I was smart enough to run my rope through all my clothing and pack so they couldn’t blow away. I then almost immediately fell asleep.

Don’t fall asleep naked on the beach. I was trying to dry off after eight straight hours of being rain-soaked, and it was more a riverbank than a beach, but yeah, add that to the Bad Ideas list. Halfway awake, I felt pretty warm on my front, so I figured I’d just roll over, finish drying off my back, and catch another few minutes of sleep. Instead, I got most of the way over, then screamed as my scorched stomach rolled onto the rough and sticky tarp. I ended up in the only position that didn’t hurt—standing upright with my arms outstretched. I ran into the river to cool down the burning that covered half my body before realizing trying to get dry was what landed me in this mess.

Eventually, I returned to shore, gingerly spread some of the burn ointment from my first aid kit over the more sensitive areas, and then got back into my underclothes. The inner layer was a compromise between minor irritation while keeping things from moving around too much. Needless to say, the rest of the day was an exercise in moderation.

I admitted to myself that I wouldn’t be traveling much today. Instead, I decided to set up a semi-permanent camp and try to catch or shoot something substantial to eat. I tied up the tarp into a makeshift lean-to again and started working on a fire. This time, I stored the collected deadwood under the tarp and placed the fire so the tarp would block any prevalent wind or rain. It was a slow, frustratingly itchy process, and it was after noon before I was done. I was adamant that I not waste any more of my food bars, so fishing seemed like the best option for food. I managed to do pretty well again, and the unseasoned, grilled fillets were more delicious than they had any right to be.

Once again, I was surprised by how much time was spent simply existing here. Granted, I slept most of the morning away, but all I had done since was set up camp and make a late lunch, and now it was too dark to do anything of consequence. With a few hours left and with the plan to stay in this location through the next day, I cut a few lengths of fishing line and set out to set some snares.

I don’t want to give the impression that I knew what I was doing; I had never set a snare. I had an idea of how they worked, but I wasn’t even sure if that idea came from reality. Regardless, it was a skill I would probably need to develop, and I had the opportunity. I started my adventure thinking I would be hunting deer and elk. I certainly could easily kill them with the rifle. Still, cleaning an animal that size, carrying it back to my campsite, and butchering it seemed a gargantuan task at the moment. Even further, How much of a 150-kilo animal would I be able to eat before it spoiled? So, I set out to find some game trails or signs of small animals.

The area along the river was sparse and flat; as you went inland, the ground rose and eventually became the ridge that formed one side of my valley. Those foothills were rockier and dominated by thicker scrub brush. Starting from slightly upstream of my camp, I walked along those bushes, looking for trails. I found a few areas that looked well-traveled by small animals and set snares at three different-looking locations. Hopefully, one would have results in the morning, and I would better know where to set my traps. After the third snare, I was out of fishing line but decided to explore further in case these locations didn’t pan out. That’s when I found the cave.

“Cave” was being a bit generous at the moment. What I saw ahead looked like an old creek bed that used to flow to the river or a wash used for flood runoff. Either way, it looked like it hadn’t been active for some time. The wash formed a gentle depression in the soil, leading from the river bank to an opening in the rocky face. I could only see the entrance, as it was too dark inside to provide any details. It may not have been more than a few meters deep, but the wash implied that water once flowed through it. Despite the recent rain, the wash wasn’t wetter than the ground around it. Hence, it had great drainage or wasn’t used by active runoff.

Now, I know you’re all thinking I am dumb enough to go exploring an unknown cave that was probably the home to any number of wild animals; you should know that you’re absolutely right, but I apparently had my wits about me today. I paid careful attention to the surroundings of the cave so I could find it again and returned to camp, leaving the exploration to wait for some careful thought.

I hiked back to the campfire and crawled into my makeshift bedroll. I had enough forethought to feed the fire and police my gear before nodding off, but I couldn’t tell you anything about that because my head was full of the possibility of finding a more permanent shelter.

It didn’t take long after I woke up to remember my exciting discovery. I wanted to race straight over and begin my spelunking career. I forced myself to slow down and think things through; the cave would be there tomorrow. I stoked the fire and ate a few bites of a food bar before checking my snares. The second snare had caught a rabbit; the other two had been triggered, but whatever did it got away. I reset all three, then returned to camp to clean and skin the rabbit. While the carcass was roasting, I scraped the skin and washed it in the river as best I could. I ate half the rabbit, wrapped the rest of the cooked meat in the skin, and tucked it into a pocket for later. Surprisingly, it was storing food that was becoming a problem, not finding it. What I wouldn’t give for some plastic bags.

Now, it was cave time. I gathered most of my gear and stowed it in my pack, keeping just the essentials with me: both firearms, a box of ammunition for each, the utility knife, rope, first aid kit, and my canteens. During the walk to the cave, I realized (belatedly) that it was probably already in use by any number of animals, all of which could bite or scratch or might even eat me. My careful “don’t get eaten” plan went like this: I walked past the cave along the riverbank and approached from downstream, which was also downwind. I found a rock outcropping with a decent view of the opening and laid down on top with my rifle ready. I marked the sun’s position and watched the opening and its surroundings for one “hand”, which I guessed to be about an hour. Seeing no activity, I slowly and carefully approached while throwing stones to see if I could scare any animals out. Finally, I crept along the rock face, avoiding the area directly in front of the cave, and fired a round from the revolver into the cave. Then I waited some more.

I had spent almost three hours approaching the cave and had seen no animal activity. Either it was empty (awesome), or whatever was in there wasn’t remotely scared of me (shit). Mentally putting on my brown pants, I crept around the corner and into the cave. I moved as slowly as I could and gave my eyes plenty of time to adjust. The entrance was a tall, roughly oval shape, about two meters tall, with a dirt floor about one meter wide at the narrowest. The dirt floor only extended a few meters inside and then gave way to the natural stone of the surrounding rock. The floor was relatively flat and sloped gently towards the right, where it was obvious the water had flowed most recently and formed a narrower, wash-like depression. The cave opened up past the entrance, mostly to the left, into a room about ten meters across and three meters in height. I was paying careful attention to any debris or remains on the floor but didn’t see any. I was sure this would have made an ideal animal den, so the lack of sign concerned me, and I kept my guard up. The front room extended deep into the hill, about three times its width.

As I approached the back of the room, I heard a faint sound of dripping water. At the very back of the cave, a small pool was being fed from a pencil-sized trickle of water running out of a crack and down the wall. This corner of the cave looked like it had collapsed into a pile of rubble. The water emptied over the edge of the pool and down into the darkness of the rubble. The pool was slightly larger than a double sink and only a dozen centimeters deep. I risked a taste; it was fresh and slightly cool but with a hint of minerals. On the other side of what I was now thinking of as the “main” room, not quite all the way to the rear, a “bubble” of open area formed a side chamber. The chamber was a short step up from the main room and had about 15 by 12 meters of floor space.