No V11 Content, but quirkiness nonetheless

[Greg Field]

I recently got back from 11 days in the rainforest chasing elk up and over mountains while toting a flintlock longrifle of my own making.

 

For once, I took a camera. Here're some pix of my portable vacation home, a Sioux-style tipi that I lived in while doing the aforementioned armed reconnaissance of said rainforest.

 

It's about a 4-hour drive from Seattle to where we set up. It poured like Noah's Flood days the whole way but miraculously stopped just as we arrived to set up. My brother-in-law Mike was with me. He comes up from California to join me for these hunts as often as he can. Why leave the comforts of Venice Beach to pay way too much for a nonresident license to participate in what could be the toughest elk hunt in the US? Don't know, but I was glad to have him along. I've set this tipi up by myself way more times than I have with help, and it's sure a lot easier with help. Plus, he's great company.

 

The first step is to create the tripod on which the whole tipi is erected. You do this by tying three poles with a clove hitch, rasing it up, and kicking poles out to the side to get their bases in position. Some tribes used a four-pole structure as the basis for their tipis, but the Sioux style is, I believe, stronger. The tripod is shown below, along with my bro-in-law Mike. The photo shown is actually from when we tore down, as shown by the snow on the ground.

 

 

My tipi is an 18-footer, so-named because the base area is about 18 feet in diameter. After the tripod is up, you add poles one at a time, in the proper order, to create the cone of the structure. Here's Mike adding the seventh pole:

 

 

Here's the structure with all but the last pole in place.

 

 

At this point, you wrap the tag end of the long rope used to tie the tripod around all the other poles to stabilize the structure. Once this is done, it's incredibly strong and stable. It would take a hurricane to topple it. Mike's shown starting the first wrap below:

 

 

The last pole is called the "lifting pole." You tie the cloth cover to this pole, lift the pole and cover into place, and then spread the cover over the poles, as shown in this photo, which is also from teardown:

 

 

 

Then, you bring the ends of the cover together at the front and secure them with wooden pins. To reach the top pins, you need to use a ladder or tie a piece of wood in place across the poles and climb up, as shown below.

 

 

After the cover is in place, its edges are still about six inches off the ground. This is not a "high-tide pants" mistake. You want them at least this far off the ground. Then you stake verything down, and the cover part is complete. Inside, you string a cloth liner all the way around and tie it in place. The liner on mine extends about 6 feet up the poles and hangs all the way to the ground, sealing the inside off from the outside and creating an air jacket that sucks air up between cover and liner when a fire is buring inside to help exhaust the smoke. This is important because for all practical purposes, you are living in a chimney.

 

Sioux tipis are built with another feature that really helps get the smoke out: movable flaps, each with its own pole that allows you to adjust them from the ground. They are shown in the following photo, which I had to re-use:

 

 

By moving the poles, you can move these airfoils such that wind from any direction will create a negative pressure area behind them, which helps "suck" out the smoke. You can also close them to keep out the weather when you are gone, as shown below:

 

 

As some of these photos show, the rain came back as soon as we were set up and then it turned to snow. We were way up high on a mountain in my Jeep when this happened. Before we knew it, there were over two feet and it was still coming down hard and fast as we bailed out down some truly awful logging roads. We hadn't gone more than a few miles before it was so deep it was being pushed over the hood of the Jeep, and we were mired completely. After digging out and chaining up all four wheels we were able to make slow headway again, but we were both certain at the time that we would be spending the night on the side of that mountain. Down below, near camp, it was just sleeting and raining, in classic rainforest fashion.

 

This is the strangest country, straight out of one of those awful Bigfoot movies of the 1970s, with ferns higher than your head, moss and lichens covering all four sides of every tree, and shards of moss hanging like great beards from every branch. Here're some bad photos that might give you an idea of what this country is like:

 

 

 

So, back to the tipi . . . The cool thing about it is, you light a fire and it becomes like a living organism, breathing and coughing once in a while but keeping you impervious to rain and snow and cold and completely without worry in any but the most extreme winds. You can light a relatively small fire inside and be really cozy. You need to keep the fire burining hot, though, or it will get too smokey inside. And when the fire goes out while you are sleeping, the temp inside drops to whatever it is outside. Most days, this was in the high 20s farenheit, but it got colder a few mornings.

 

As you look up to see sparks from the fire swirling upward through the smoke flaps, the smoke swirls againts the convirging poles, looking for all the world like a primitive version of the view upward through the center of the Guggenheim in New York. I tried to capture this view in pictures, but I do not have a lens to make it possible:

 

 

The next day it kept snowing and snowing and snowing such that we couldn't really drive everywhere. Here's what it looked like that morning:

 

 

The snow drove the elk lower and lower, though, till we were among them every day. I was close enough to smell them three times (even a small herd of elk smells like a barnyard full of cows), within 10 feet twice, and within 30 yards many more times. The woods are so thick, though, and so slick. Each time I was a heartbeat away from having a shot with the trusty flintlock, but the elk were quicker. They may not be so lucky next time . . .

[mdude]

elks, flintlocks... you didnt mention the duellling banjos or the piggy squealing?....

[Guest redguzziv10]

Greg

That just looks like the best ever fun you could get.

i've been to Mt Hood a few times. Wish i'd have thought of the tipi idea.

Back here in Essex, UK, the widest open spaces are usually found between the ears of Essex girls.

oh well, mebbe next time

[rossoct]

Greg,

 

GREAT PICS!!!!!!!!

 

 

Boy that looks like a lot of fun.!!

[badmotogoozer]

Thanks Greg! That was very interesting!

 

Takes me back to Elk hunting in northern Manitoba with my father - we'd live in snow huts (quinzees) for two weeks in -30C.

 

Rj

[Guest bshpilot]

amazing...wouldnt a tent be easier

so i gotta ask...how HEAVY is the tipi covering...is it canvas ?

do you find the poles where ever you set up or do you bring 'em ?

 

sounds kinda scarey all that snow...

[soloNH]

Great trip Greg!

 

Brings back memories of a men's group I was a part of several years back.

 

One of the members had one about the same size in his back yard which we used guite often in the winter time.

 

Makes a great space. As one of the hunters in the group we often spoke of how great it would be to hunt out of one.

 

Really sheds the weather, real toasty with a fire.

 

Being from the northeast I can only dream of an elk hunt like that!!!

[macguzzi]

Do you get a tom tom with that teepee, find your way through all that snow

[John in Leeds]

We hadn't gone more than a few miles before it was so deep it was being pushed over the hood of the Jeep, and we were mired completely.

 

I wondered how you got all those poles on your Guzzi - now I know

 

great post - thanks

[Greg Field]

Glad some of you enjoyed it. I do this at least once a year. If anyone wants to try it, we can prob'ly fit you in.

 

Those poles are a hell of a lot of work to cut and peel, so I only did it once and have subsequently carried them to the site on my truck and store them at home.

[docc]

The tipi is a remarkable shelter. Did you pack the inner walls with straw?

 

And where are the Jeep pictures? We're motorheads, donchaknow.

[Greg Field]

Doc:

 

No straw. You really need to keep the area between the liner and cover open for airflow to exhaust the smoke from the fire, especially if, as is so often the case in the West, you are forced by scarcity of hardwoods to burn conifer wood, which is smokey by nature.

 

My Jeep is a boring Cherokee. Completely stock. You would yawn.

[Guest Nogbad]

 

Back here in Essex, UK, the widest open spaces are usually found between the ears of Essex girls.

 

 

Have you ever gone hunting elk in there?

[Richard Z]

This is just me.... But, I think I would have stayed in the Jeep or a Holiday Inn Express.

 

As for the Elk, They would have been safe with me shooting at them.

 

Richard Z.