High Sierra Topix

jt

Off topic, but didn't you just love the simplicity of the Moss Solus II Tent! 6 stakes and one pole! Mine finally wore out after 20 years of hard use. I was going to have a new one custom made but then my wife and I became addicted to the comfort of large Downmat sleeping pads and the Solus II just won't fit them. Of course neither will any other 2 person lightweight tent. So we use a Big Agnes Seedhouse 3SL. nice tent but way to complex and requires more than the 6 tie out points or stakes that the Solus II needed.

Mike

Found. Lots of trashed and shredded bear bags hanging from trees. A beautiful half open round rock with crystals inside on a 7 day trip. It weighted a ton so we left it. Indian arrow trading camps at the to of passes with a lot of "rejects" on the ground. Lots of hand made nails on the ground around deserted mines. One time, condoms-three at one spot one time. What a trip that must have been.
Left. Poop. If a bear can do it can I. My wooden hiking staff at Rocky Lakes Basin. I just plaint forgot to pick it up. A pair of hiking boots at Manter Meadow trailhead. Carefully put them on the ground , changed shoes and drove off. We had mules take wood and beer to Thousand Island Lake and didn’t want to drag it down ourselves so at a popular campsite we left both (11 cans) with a note saying if you used the booze you had to take it out.
Last. I tried that Kevlar Ursack bear bag when it first came out. A bear easily got into it at Young Lake in Yosemite. We cleaned up the mess but couldn’t untie it or cut it from the tree the cord was wrapped around. We took a picture of the torm bag and the mess and sent it to the bear ranger. They told me that the trail ranger went up with a wire cutter and cut it off. My picture if the Ursack torn open was used for years at every permit office to explain to people why the park wouldn’t let the Ursack suffice as a bear bag.

About 35 years ago I found a Silva Ranger compass in the crotch of a tree somewhere high up in Kings Canyon Park. If it'd had a name and phone number on it I would have returned it to the unlucky owner. As it is, I've been happily using it all this time. You can bet that I have my name and phone number taped to it.

About 10 years ago it developed a bubble. I returned it to Silva for repairs and, IIRC, amazingly, they repaired it for free. All I paid was shipping.

Definitely a good deal.

Dave

Just this year:

Found: a nice swiss army knife at a lake in Henry Coe St. Park. Had a name on it, and when i did a facebook search, I actually found the owner! Returned with a smile!

Hoover Wilderness: a lovely and relatively new aluminom pot and lid. We like it so much, it has replaced our 35 year-old model.

Cherry Creek below Styx Pass: a day pack and pair of hiking boots--12 miles from the nearest trail. Both had a colony of frogs living in them...so we left them there.

And yeah--tons of trash, almost all of which we've packed out. Won't do TP, however...


LOST: nothing---but I THOUGHT I left my camera behind in Emigrant Wilderness...and after hiking back to get it....I found it was in my pack...

sigh

balzaccom wrote:
LOST: nothing---but I THOUGHT I left my camera behind in Emigrant Wilderness...and after hiking back to get it....I found it was in my pack...

sigh

Hate it when I do that!

I lost a Leatherman Micra on the Dana Fork of the Tuolumne - walked back and forth along the same quarter of a mile of the river and did not see it anywhere, I suspect one of the zillion people also walking up and down the river picked it up.

Unless, of course, it is somewhere else in my stuff. I just got the replacement in the mail. Perhaps my old one will yet make itself known.

We were out hiking the High Sierra Trail and about a mile and a half before Bear Paw Meadows, I saw this pick ax. I didn't think too much about it at the time...except as I hiked, there was no trail crew anywhere in the neighborhood....all the way to Bear Paw...

In any case, there was no way I was going to carry it all the way to Mt Whitney summit and down!



While camped near Bear Paw, I found an old pair of pliers.... And a few days later a sardine can stashed under a rock. I thought it was old enough, it might have been a relic.

The most dramatic - an airplane wreck strung out about half a mile on the Downs Glacier in the Wind River Mountains. Found out later that it had crashed into the peak and over the years avalanches had dispersed it down the glacier. It was 10+ years old but the pieces looked very recent, especially the bright orange seat cushions.

Lots of old rusted tin cans and general trail litter. An entire stashed horse camp (very deteirorated and in an illegal location). Took photos and gave to the FS rangers. The saddlebags had the outfitters name on them! Oil barrels stuck in the tops of trees 30 feet above ground - result of the 1997-8 flood on the Yuba River. Mining equipment from the gold rush days.

Junk that I have left or lost. Plastic bag full of garbage - put it on a rock at night and forgot it - remembered about 8 miles later. $200 transitions bifocals fell out of my pocket - hunted for 2 hours and could not find them. Ice axe, boots - fell head first into a raging stream - the boots were someone elses (we were bringing out gear of a person who was evacuated) and the ice axe was mine. One tennis shoe fell off my pack while bushwhaking below Edith Lake. My sporke is sitting on a log in Cirque of the Towers, Wyoming. Plenty of fishing flies stuck up in trees. Lots of webbing and climbing gear when bailing off climbs. Socks that somehow slipped out of my hand while washing and went floating down the river.

That reminds me. . .
If anyone spots the top half of a spinning rod sticking up out of the sand bottom about 12 feet down in 4th of July Lake - - that's mine, and I want it back!

Where do I start. Plane wreckage (check). Chopper wreckage (check). Old tents, tarps, groundpads, sleepingbags, trash, cans, bottles, mining equipment (check). Im a collector so my wife loves it when I find more junk to add to my collection.

Best find was last summer in Desolation. Found a nearly brand new Cannon Powershot SD630 6.0mpix. Went to sit on a rock to tie a new fly, looked down and there it was. Went through all the pix to try to find a way to contact the owner. Called the ranger station to report it missing. Went CSI style to find the owner matter of fact. Had the persons wedding pics, trip to Peru, 4th of July. I mad many phone calls to try to find the owner with no success.

So, my wife has a new camera until the owner claims it. The owner appears to be about 25 to 35, female, blond, in shape, and from the Huntington Beach area. So unless you fit that description, forget about it!

Good one BMFB! And with digital cameras it takes less than a minute to take a pic of a piece of paper with a name and phone number on it. On my to-do list for sure.