High Sierra Topix

The photo I most regret not taking this summer was from our SHR Cirque Crest section hike this July. At the top of Goat Crest Saddle there is a small pond, and in this pond we saw maybe the oddest thing I've ever seen in the mountains: an entire, intact animal brain (plus some bits of intestine), about the size of an orange, sitting in the bottom of shallow and very clear water at the very south end of the pond. Did anyone by chance notice this bizarre detail on a SHR hike this summer and happen to get a picture of it? Since that pond is so high and so clear, there's a decent chance it may very well still be there next summer.

Alas, I have no such picture. But, this is still the best topic I've ever seen.

bwd wrote: ↑Mon Sep 27, 2021 6:01 am Alas, I have no such picture. But, this is still the best topic I've ever seen.

I'm with you, bwd. I'm still laughing, not at the observation, but as the best response to "pictures I've not taken".

Markskor was good at not taking pictures of his "huge" fish. What animal do you think the brain was from? Deer?

Back in the days of film photography, I had just crossed Longley Pass on my way to Thunder Pass.
http://www.sierrahiker.com/ThunderCol/index.html
I was contouring around in the upper Lake Reflection basin and was shocked to see about 50 feet of small intestine strung across the rocks next to the grassy bench where I was hiking. Actually, it could have been 20, 30, 40 feet. The air was thin.
Topography prevented me from capturing the intestines in one shot, so I didn't bother to take even one photo. This was before I became a member of iNaturalist and I didn't pay as much attention to such things. I'd guess the intestines came from a marmot since it's about the only creature living at that elevation that would have that much intestine. I guess the raptor [just guessing] that ate it didn't like guts.

Our best guess was deer, it seemed to be about the right size. What we couldn't figure out was what had possibly happened to the rest of the deer, in particular the skull, that left such an intact brain?

Well, whoever or whatever killed the deer was not a zombie.

Here is a photo of the pond on Goat Crest Saddle. The view is toward the Palisades.

The photo above was from a trip in 2001. I did the High Route from Cedar Grove to Florence Lake. http://www.sierrahiker.com/HighRoutePartI/index.html

I crossed it in 1996 on a trip to Dumbbell Lakes.
http://www.sierrahiker.com/DumbbellLakes/index.html

I'm gonna get a better water filter.

thegib wrote: ↑Sun Oct 03, 2021 8:48 pm I'm gonna get a better water filter.

Haha, exactly - with all my moaning about stale, non-running lakes, filtering is on my mind: I usually think of people's waste and dead animals on unseen shores, but I've never seen a brain.