Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.
Well, I left my Tyrolean style bamboo ski poles that I shortened and modified to use as hiking poles at Onion Valley parking lot. That's about all I can recall. I did, however, find a gallon size ziploc bag full of trash that someone "misplaced" at Bishop Lake. I had to caretake that thing for a week before getting it to it's rightful place.
If you don't know where you're going, then any path will get you there.
A long time ago, and not in the Sierra, but my most spectacular loss of gear was on a NOLS course in the early 1970's. A student got hurt so we were walking him out and I was carrying half is stuff on top of my pack. Jumping rocks over a very swift stream, I fell in. I jettisoned the pack and others pulled me out on the other side. My pack was retrieved, but most of the other fellows gear (lashed on the top) was gone as was my ice axe and some of my stuff that was lashed to the pack. Anything still in the pack was soaked. Thankfully, others loaned me what I needed to stay warm.
More recently, in the Sierra, I lost one wading shoe while bushwhacking, many single socks that just slipped out of my hand while washing, gloves, sunglasses, a gray colored sporke (my new one is purple), and I blew up a stove and fuel canister in a spectacular explosion (no parts even found!).
Nowadays, I just loose stuff due to bad eyesight and poor memory! Most times it shows up later, usually in the bottom of my black pack, which is nothing but a big black hole. The last item that I thought I lost, was a cap to my Platypus water bottle. I hunted for the stupid thing for nearly an hour. Well, when I got home, I found it on the shelf of my closet. I forgot to take it in the first place.
We had pulled the canoes over to the left bank of the Klamath River deep in a redwood forrest on a canoe camping trip from the confluence with the Trinity to the Pacific for a short pit stop and munchie break. We had been alternating between deep shade and a bright sun glaring off the water. No longer in need of my expensive glacier glasses, I laid them on a sizable limb and pulled out my munchie bag.
A couple of hours later, after having passed through some Class II sections with the heavily laden Old Towns, we broke into a blinding glare on the water. I instantly remembered where the glasses were. Had we been on a trail, I would happily have speed walked sans pack to retrieve them. It would have been quite the experience to unload the canoe and fight the current back upstream for those spectacles, however. Que será, será.
When I was up on the summit of Whitney a few weeks ago I put my sunglasses down as I was packing up my stuff on the wall of one of the rock shelters. I remembered about halfway down the MR when we popped into the sun that I had failed to pick them up. Yeah, wasn't going back for them.
Worst ever for me was forgetting my lure box at Treasure Lakes in Little Lakes Valley in 1981 (didn't figure that out until I unpacked at home). It had some lures that I could only get out-of-state (Montana, in this case), including several of a pattern that was my go-to at that time. I may have been a bit sidetracked because it was the first time I'd taken a girl on the High Sierra trip with me. More recently (2015) I forgot my "on desk circle" mini lure box (probably about 10 lures in it) along the shores of the Big G. Don't know what the distraction was there---getting broken off twice by big macks and running out of line perhaps. My dad once thought he left his camera on the top of Lone Pine Peak after we had descended quite a way down the infernal scree toward Meysan Lake. I had turned around to go fetch it and had ascended a bit when he found he had simply stashed in his rucksack. I was pretty happy not to have to repeat that scree slog.
I've lost more gear on geologic hikes, though. This includes the usual forgetting my sledge hammer on an outcrop somewhere. The worst geologic gear loss, though, was on one of my hardest hikes while geologic mapping in super thick brush in the vicinity of Pilarcitos Lake on the SF Peninsula. Normally when faced with the thickest brush, one can usually wade through it or sometimes even climb on top of it, but the only option here was to crawl under it. I was on my hands and knees/feet for a good 400 m (40 percent of this brush was also poison oak, too). Throughout this exercise the brush was tearing at me and my clothing. When I emerged (after following the crawl with more traditional brush "wading"), my clothing was torn to shreds, and I was pretty well bloodied, but the worst part was my belt had been torn off and with it my Brunton compass, which is a pretty expensive piece of gear to lose. In spite of that there was no way I was going back in there after it. One more unpleasant experience remained. I got into my car, started it up, got the AC going, and started driving, only see a tick crawling up the window frame on my driver's side. It was just one of those days.
Lost a Patagonia short sleeve shirt in Kendrick Canyon years ago, hung it on a tree to dry overnight. If you have seen a bear wearing a light green shirt, send me the gps co-ordinates please.
Professional Sierra Landscape Photographer
I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.
Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member:http://reconn.org
And if that bear wearing Mavs Patagonia shirt happens to be wearing the hat shown below, I'd be grateful for the coordinates too. Seems the thing was swept off my noggin while doing a bushwhack descent on the steeper side of Sphinx Creek at night. Didn't know it was gone until much later, not exactly a LNT example.
Shawns Hat.jpg
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By a long shot, sunglasses and gloves, especially the left ones. Basically though, anything that isn't taped or tied to me. What gripes me is when I know exactly where I left something, go back for it, and someone has taken it.
Wandering Daisy wrote:and I blew up a stove and fuel canister in a spectacular explosion (no parts even found!).
I had it, and my friend had my tent. He shipped the tent back, and it'll be here soon.. I hope the beanie is in the tent. 
