After the embarrassing little roof incident where Taylor got a good chewing out by Nel and Greg got a black eye, it was decided that they would take Jason’s advice and seek out his friend Jen for proper training in rope rappelling. This was done without Nel’s knowledge.
Jen was an independent woman who had earned the Triple Crown by crossing the Pacific Crest, Appalachian, and Continental Divide Trails by herself. She had also climbed most of the major mountains in Washington and Alaska. Her hair was long and tied back. Her arms were heavily tattooed and muscled, and her hands calloused from ropes and rocks. She wore ear buds which played constant bluegrass music, a way to block out people.
Taylor and Greg were geared up for her class. Both wore helmets which Jen had written nicknames on. Greg was Slim, and Taylor was Paunch. They both wore harnesses which took them forever to put on.
“Look, I showed you how they go on,” Jen groused. “If you think I’m going to pull them up over your fat butts, you can think again!”
Taylor was convinced that Jen hated men, but they took ten classes from her learning how to anchor ropes safely and the different techniques for rappelling and belaying down a rock walk. All the training was done on the south face. Though she could not understand why two old fogies would want to be part of her class; they never told her or anyone else about the cave above the store on the west wall. Finally, after convincing her that they were safe to go solo, she graduated them to go on their merry way.
It was a major undertaking, keeping their training, purchasing of gear and the planned trip down to the cave, from Nel. She would have something to say about it if she ever found out, so it was hush, hush.
On the Saturday of the event, Nel was watching the store so Taylor and Greg could drive to Seattle for a Comic-Con Convention. Taylor had put all the gear in the trunk of his car and when Greg arrived, they drove to the top of the mountain. They had already located, from the ground, a landmark tree on the west ridge which was directly over the cave. Parking in the car lot on top of Mt. Erie, they quickly unloaded the gear and set off through the woods to find the tree.
“Cripes! Every tree looks the same,” Greg noted.
“Well, there’s the store down below us.” Taylor said. “I think this tree is the landmark tree.”
Just then, the side door of the store opened and Nel stepped outside to shake a floor mat.
“Yikes! Hide. What if she looks up here? The whole valley will hear her.”
“Nobody looks up here but us,” Greg said.
They waited until she re-entered the store. Then they went through the process of anchoring their ropes to the tree. When that was done, they tossed the bulk of the ropes over the edge. Next, putting on harnesses, helmets, and gloves, they began the descent down the rock.
“You know, this is exhilarating,” Greg exclaimed. “Here we are, two old fogies hanging out over a rock wall, descending to a mysterious cave. Who would have guessed?”
“I’m just watching the door to the store.” Taylor said nervously. “Whose idea was it for us to buy fluorescent yellow windbreakers?”
Finally, 70 feet down from the ridge they found the landing. Sure enough, there was the mouth of a cave. Carefully unhooking from their ropes, they walked to the mouth. The opening was about six feet high, and they could feel a breeze flowing out onto their faces. Both men wore fanny packs from which they removed flashlights. Taylor went into the opening first.
“Whew! The air stinks in here,” Taylor commented.
“Yeah, it’s humid.” Greg said. “My guess is that there are bats in here and we’re smelling bat guano. Keep low. If they get spooked, they’re going to fly right over us to get out.”
They continued in, shining the flashlight on the cave ceiling and sidewalls. Taylor saw them first.
“Look here in the dirt on the ground. Animal tracks. They look the size of a house cat.”
As they continued down the tunnel, Greg noticed that up ahead the area appeared to have light. They walked slowly, not speaking. The tunnel opened into a large cavern and in the ceiling was a split in the rock where the outside daylight shone through giving a dim light to the room. The floor of the cavern had formed a basin and rain in the season coming through the ceiling hole had left a pool. Around the pool grew ferns. It was amazing!
Taylor and Greg both pulled out their cell phones to take pictures.
“This is so cool,” Greg said slowly.
As Taylor shone his flashlight to the far side of the cavern, they both were startled to hear a chorus of noises.
“Shhhh! What was that?” he asked.
They both shone their lights around the cavern and in one corner illuminated a multitude of eyes staring back at them.
“What are they?” Greg asked.
They had bodies 32 to 40 inches long with a third of their length in a bushy tail. Their legs were short and stout. They had smaller heads with rounded ears. Their fur was dark brown, dense, and glossy with light patches on their undersides. There were two adults and at least four kits.
Taylor and Greg took pictures of them as they huddled as a family nervously. Though the animals were scared, they made no noise.
“Are they minks or weasels?” Greg asked.
“I think,” said Taylor, “that they are Fishers. But Fishers were hunted almost to extinction in Washington for their pelts. Why would they be here? Get the pictures you want and let’s leave them alone.”
They walked back out the tunnel and out the mouth of the cave into the sunshine. As they reattached to the ropes, Taylor heard the incoming familiar sound of Jason’s drone which came to a hoover directly over their heads.
“Taylor Neff!! You are in trouble now!” The scream indeed filled Erie Valley.
Back at the store, after being chewed on over and over like a dog toy, Taylor promised to sell his climbing gear. He also promised to fund Nel’s annual trip with the girls to Palm Springs.
He contacted the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and confirmed through his photos that the animals in the cave were indeed Fishers, part of a program to reintroduce the animals to Washington State. All agreed to keep the whereabouts of the animals a secret. Taylor, Greg, and Jason also agreed to never tell anyone about the location of the cavern. It had been found by Taylor and would not be found again. On the cork board Wall of Fame in the store were mounted photos of the Fishers which were taken in the cavern. Though no one would ever learn the location of the animals, Taylor became celebrity, known in Erie Valley as Taylor Neff, the Fisher Guy.
Click here to return to Chapter 1.
** This is a work of fiction and all characters are fictional, unless of course, they are my cousins.
** The cave photo on Mt. Erie was taken by an unknown photographer. It shows a recent helicopter rescue by Whidbey NAS flight crews.
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5 replies on “Taylor Neff, the Fisher Guy Chapter 3- The Cave”
Awww fishers are adorable!
You got me started on a fact-finding quest of my own. I’ve twice seen a mink crossing the Mount Baker Hwy as I was driving along in the twilight when we had our farm out by Kendall. Because of the dim lighting when they are normally out and about, I wasn’t quite sure. There had been a fur farm near the Kendall Creek fish hatchery prior to our time living out there with black fox and mink, and some activists released them all one night years ago. This I was told when I mentioned to people I thought I had seen a black fox by the highway once, too, which seemed especially unlikely. So, I figured the minks I had seen were offspring from the escapees, as I did not believe mink were native to Washington State. I figured they had all been imported from Russia to be raised in fur farms and had gone feral.
Well, how wrong I was. Mink live naturally, it turns out, in every state of the union, except Arizona. I had never heard of a fisher, so that got my quest started because your photo looks a little mink-like, albeit scruffier. So, I wondered if that was what I had seen. Turns out fishers are much larger, though, almost like a wolverine. The critters I saw were sleek little weasel-sized lopers, maybe a bit larger than a weasel and definitely a lot darker and shinier. Still, I’m guessing they were probably offspring of the escapees from the former fur farm since they were within about a mile of where the farm had been located; but it looks like we do have a lot of native mink in the area, too, as well as competing feral mink from what I’ve now read.
Always learning.
P.S. As for the black fox, it had the same face as a fox and was wild in nature (very spooky to where it ran from me when I approached it). It even the exact markings of a black fox, including the white tip on the tail; however, it was larger than a fox. I had been stunned by the size of that “black fox” as well as how out of place it seemed until I learned about the fur farm formerly down the road that had raised black foxes. At that point, I concluded I had really seen a very large black fox … until … I was introduced to my neighbor’s dog! (A dog so skittery it seemed wild in nature.)
Erin and I once spotted a black kangaroo on the farm, too. We both looked at each other as we saw it hopping rapidly across our field and exclaimed, “Is that a kangaroo? A black kangaroo?”
Turned out to be the same black neighbor’s dog. The hay was tall, and he hopped rapidly on his hind legs all the way across the field so he could see where he was going. All you could see was his head, neck and curled front paws bouncing up above the grass with each hop. Strange dog!
I can hear the whole family of cousins laughing from here – especially about Jen’s tattoos!
The whole bunch loved it.!! They just finished the orange trim on top today. Gonna be fun to see what’s next down there. We have two binoculars busy watching the progress. Ok waiting for more Marty stories. Thanks for the 3 Great Lake Erie stories. Hope to see you soon