High Sierra Topix

Wow, a lot of lost spoons….

I wear prescriptions glasses, both clear and polarized sunglasses. I forgot my clear glasses in the car, setting on the console, when I left for a 3-day trip. Evenings became really dark, really fast.

On just my last trip, I forgot two items, my tent stakes and my hiking stick. I had taken a bigger/heavier dome tent instead of my Sololite…forgot to check for the stakes….my wife had taken the stakes to hold down a pop-up sun shade for a football scrimmage. I placed some fairly large rocks both inside and out at the tent corners. No problems and the wind really howled each day too. I did just fine without the hiking stick and will probably hike without it henceforth.

Day two of a 10-day llama trip I went to look for my water filter and couldn’t find it. It wasn’t left at home because I had just used it the night before. I looked everywhere to no avail. I had my 9 year old son with me and really wanted to filter my water on this trip. I awoke early the second morning and told my son to stay put that I was going to hike back to our first night’s camp where I had last used the filter, thinking I had left it near the stream where I filtered water. Back at our first night’s camp it was nowhere to be found. Two guys were camped in the exact spot where we had been. I woke them up asking if they had seen the filter and their replied “No”. I apologized for the early morning wake up call and headed back, with my head hanging low. While packing up the llamas for the third day’s hike I found the filter, in a pannier, right where it should have been.

Okay, here is my TP story. I was going #2 near the edge of a very steep cliff which dropped several hundred feet. When I finished my business I reached for the TP but instead of grabbing it, I knocked it off the edge. Nearly the entire thing unrolled as it bounced its way down….a long straight line of TP. I made my way down (with pants down around the knees) to where I could grab the end of the unrolled paper and gently pulled. But despite my best efforts, the TP broke off. I repeated this action but no matter how gentle I tugged, it always broke off. Well, I went and retrieved the whole thing and when I returned to camp my partner asked, “Man, that must have been one hell-of-a crap you took?”

I have a check-off list and rarely forget anything.

OF, that TP story is funny.

I did pretty much the same thing with a roll of TP. I went to sit it down and it tipped over the edge of the rock and it was all down hill from there. By the time I rolled (gathered) it all back up it was the size of a micro-wave. My hiking partners got a heck of a good laugh as I returned to camp.

This is not "lost' story, but on a trip a few years back, a newbie friend of mine wanted to dry his boots near the fire. He did not pay close enough attention to how close he put them to the heat of the fire. By the time he checked on them, the soles had melted so badly the boots were completely useless. He ended up walking about 8 miles out with rubber flip flops. It made for a very slow hike and the looks we got from people we passed were priceless.

Last Friday AM at Puppet L., I lost my hemostats somewhere near the main bend on the southern shore. The reason for the loss still pains me. I will describe what happened in a trip report next week. I ended up having to use a tiny pair nail clippers when releasing fish the rest of the trip.

Keys to the car that was so carefully shuttled from South Lake to North Lake! About half way to Bishop Pass (well, probably not, but it makes a better story) I just casually asked the shuttle-car's driver if he had his car keys, and he said, "No, of course not, why would I.... oh..... <the rest is not for a family newspaper>". He went all the way back down [keys were in the car we left at S Lake, luckily] and made it up in time to meet us for dinner in Dusy Basin, so nothing horrible was lost. Imagine, though how unpopular he'd be if we hadn't noticed until after spending the day hiking down from Lamarck Col!

At Bernice fishing, just over from Voglesang....third day of a 12 day trip.
Fishing the far bank -
(FYI), two deep holes there but a snowfield/talus edge makes things a little dicey.

Anyway, I put down my fly box on a large refrigerator-sized block and promptly kicked it down a deep chute. I could see it 8 feet down below but agonizingly unreachable...I know I tried for hours, almost had it too. Little disheartening to finally have it snagged and watch it pop off - and be gone.

Had to walk the shoreline and snag gear from trees...made flies from thread, down, and whatever.

Sunglasses by the dozen. Two of the most memorable casualties:

Last year, on day 1 of a 6 day trip into the Kaweah Basin, an hour into the hike I was crossing a stream with my sunglasses hooked onto my shirt. I stumbled slightly on a rock, the glasses flew off and momentum carried my other foot directly on top of the glasses. Smash and no sunglasses for the next 5-1/2 days.

Once, going bear Bear Lakes Basin to Feather Pass, one lens popped out and feel deep into a chasm between some rocks. This was particularly bad because I was crossing numerous snowfields, which is really unpleasant without sunglasses. Wearing sunglasses with one lens just doesn't work, unless you're a pirate

Matches. No big deal, I used a flint stick.

My most memorable booboo was ......food!

I left it in the cooler in the car at the trailhead. I was a mile or so up the trail before I remembered. :retard:

I once forgot the pump for my MSR stove on a 3-night trip. I had the fuel bottle, the fuel, the stove, but no pump. I did have a lantern, since this was an October trip in the days before LED headlamps and I wanted to read after it got dark. The lantern had a flat metal top on it, so I thought maybe I could cook on it. Well, about a half hour later I had a nice lukewarm pot of ramen. I gave up on that idea. Fortunately, my breakfasts were all cold cereal, so I just had to stretch my lunches out to be lunch and dinner.

I've forgotten a spoon before. I tried to whittle one out of wood and this was only semi successful. The most tragic loss was leaving my lure box behind at Treasure Lakes (LLV) in 1981. I had some lures I had purchased in Montana that I have never seen since. Of course, I would have long since snagged them off, but to lose 70 plus lures at once is pretty tough. It wasn't lost of the first day of the trip, though. I recall forgetting my stove once, but fortunately we were camping in a campfire legal area.

On day 2 of 7 my favorite all time trip (Dumbbells) I launched my rod tip into Dusy 11393 and the line broke (the rod tip occasionally gets launched, but this is the only time the line snapped, too). My tip section sank in 20 plus feet of deep blue ice-fringed water. My whole trip depended on the retrieval effort but no way was I going swimming in that cold. I tied two Z-Rays onto the end of my line and cast with my stubby rod. Over and over I attempted to thread the needle and snag that tip section. After some nerve wracking and frustrating efforts I rescued the rod tip and my trip was saved.

TP? Never forgot it, but I have run out before. Lupines. Not as good as Charmin, but...