The animal waters needed topping off.

Then I grabbed a big handful of celery to take with me.

I didn't get on the road until after 10:30 am but headed north with my gear and the trailer.

West of Kettle Falls is Sandy's drivein where I stopped for a burger and tots to eat on my drive up the mountain.

Stopped for gas then headed north along the Kettle Falls river.

The bottom half of the road was the shittiest washboard I have been on in years. Unloaded I could mob over them and not be too badly effected.

On my way up I stopped and pay homage to the tree that saved my life 5 years ago.

I would have flipped the truck down the gully if not for the tree.

Soon I had pulled into camp where Art was doing some small limbing.

After hanging for a bit we went for a wander out to the wall but had to cut the trail open as there was tons of dead fall. As we went a pair of forest goats hung out nearby and didn't seem to upset by our presence.

Lots of small stuff which went pretty easily. We got the trail nicely cleared.

We headed back to camp then hiked out to the other wall.

The canyon of the other wall is rather surreal. We had been down in it before exploring but it has been years. With it getting darker we headed back to camp to get the fire going. We ended up crashing well before 9pm.

Sunrise was clear though I had slept like garbage. The cot worked well but I had not leveled it enough so was sliding around all night.

Mid morning we packed our gear in our packs and hiked out to the canyon wall. On the way we discovered a new small wall and rock outcropping that we had never seen before. So we dove off the side of the trail and down the slope to hike around it and check it out.

It was a serious schlep and we were both worked after it. We still had to hike to the canyon where it was nice and sunny and warm on top at our anchors.

After Art popped over the side and to a set of our anchors he came back up and we both were in no mood to climb or even rappel. So we went exploring the area. The Old Man's Beard moss is EVERYWHERE and this length was some of the straightest I had seen.

Most is not that straight.

Into the canyon we climbed and then into the most awesome caving systems. There are ACTUAL HOUSE SIZED boulders that trundled into the canyon which is really deep thanks to the geology of it. At some point the rock and hillside split apart with the massive fissure created then filled with the boulders.

This one cave was 50 feet long and 30 feet tall with more caves running in other directions connected by small passageways.

This was a rather mellow entrance and exit. We couldn't go DEEP but we went through the upper levels. Deep would need rope and safety gear. There were some holes I looked down into that went straight down multiple levels for what looked like over 40 feet. I figure the largest of the systems we went through was easily over 600 sq ft of cave floor space.

It was humid as hell down in the bottom, despite it only being 70F up top. As we clamored down the canyon we saw numerous MASSIVE wasp nests. This one was hanging not far over our heads as we walk beneath. Thankfully it was old and empty, like all of them.

This is THE wall in the area. We have 4 sets of anchors on top ready for likely NOT us to do the routes as they look super stout. The wall is a solid 160+ feet tall and a full rope length climb.

That is the other side of the canyon that at one point in time moved away from the place I was standing.

We called it good and packed up and hiked back to camp. Dumped out gear, ate, grabbed beers and hiked out to the gully by our original wall. It is not the same canyon as the other but it is a big draw with some solid 130+ft tall walls. We had vet to do any work in this canyon.

Hiking around the terrain we found this slabby area that shows absolute signs of water running. Those streaks are clear proof and it also shows that there is likely ice that forms in winter over the entire face. We will be coming back to check mid winter if there is actual water ice we might be able to climb.

Back in camp around 5pm Art suggested I knock down one of the trees, one of the many dead around camp. This one was standing dead so I grabbed the saw and got started.

The shape was rather odd and the tree ended up with more weight to the back by a smidge. I made my big face cut and as I cut the back cut I saw no movement of the tree so had Art bring down wedges.

The tree went over after I cut through all but a 2x2 inch area and slammed the wedges in as far as I could.

The tree limbed itself when it hit which we used for our fire that night.

6:30 am yesterday morning I woke up to see the sunrise which was a nice yellow.

But as the minutes went on the light turned red and I decided right then that I was going home. Red sky in morning take warning, weather is inbound.

I was really happy with my charging setup I have made. The converter works wonderful and is really fast to charge my phone.

With coffee in me I grabbed the saw and got to work bucking the tree.

About 20 minutes later I had the bulk of it in rounds then had to start loading the trailer.

The biggest rounds went on first and I wrapped them tight.

Then the rest of the tree got loaded but it didn't finish off the second level. So we packed up and began to creep out the road looking for more to cut.

A quarter mile out the road I found a nice pair of trees that had air cured as dead fall. It was nice as it was above the road so I rolled the rounds down the hill to the trailer. I piled them on and then wrapped the layer. It took a number of straps to lock it all down on the trailer and we kept driving out looking for the lengths to fill the bed of my truck.

There is an area of the forest that was burned out at one point and has acres up acres of dead fall lodgepole pine. Straight as an arrow and perfectly consistent sizing. I cut about 2 dozen 6 to 8 foot lengths and piled them in the truck. I was worn out and sore so called it good even though I should have loaded more. My concern was the super slow drive down the road to the highway and getting out before the forecasted winds that could trap us with downed trees.

Stopped at the tree again on the way out. I'm very happy the tree is still alive.

OMG! The washboard was insane! I had to stop countless times to shift the wood on the trailer around and tighten straps. It took an hour and a half to get down to pavement.

After stopping at Sandy's for a burger I headed for home. The highway speeds were nice and normal and I was soon nearing home.

Past Chewelah it began to rain and the closer I got to the farm the harder it was raining.

I backed the trailer into the yard in a pretty solid downpour.

This is what hit us.

After 2 hours of rain it finally finished and I was able to get my truck unloaded then the trailer.

The rounds all went in front of the cover to get split and stacked.

The lengths went to the side.

Within minutes R was out beginning splitting. The boys both enjoy it.

I looked at the lengths and noticed nice full length splits. Lodgepole pine are beautiful that way, nice straight grain that allows for nice splits. I will be going back to bring home a load of 10 or 12 foot poes that I can use as building lumber. Free dried, cured, Lodgepole lumber just litters the forest and the more is cleaned up the less fire danger.

J was splitting a log and looked down to find these spiders that had gotten squished in the crack at some point. Absolutely amazing looking and God only knows how old they are. The trees burned many years ago so who knows. I split the section off the log and he has it on his shelf in his room.

Soaking was super nice on my insanely sore muscles.

Rain is gone and forecast is mellow the next week. I have to check the garden today and pull the frozen stuff, see if the potatoes made it, harvest anything ready, work on the wood pile, and the garden shed.

ᛏᛋᛇᛉᚱᛚ

^Affiliate/Referral Link^

For more information about our farm:
Fleming Family Farm
FLEMING FAMILY FARM, LLC
Sustainable & Organic Methods | Heirloom Produce

All images are original works of Fleming Family Farm unless otherwise notated and credited.

If you find this post useful or entertaining, your support is greatly appreciated by upvoting, following, and sharing!

You can Also Find Me On:

Donations or Tips

Zap Me ⚡️ ᛒᛏᚲ

!

---