"So, you guys went over Dick's Pass?" It was them. We spent about an hour sitting in the hut bullshitting and eating their extra food. The snow had been too much for them on Dick's so they bussed around it. To us it was hardly an obstacle. That I think is the affect the high Sierra had on us. Abbey said she gets too cautious on the snow and has trouble. My own trouble with it today was a result of carelessness.
Before even breakfast I went shooting off a steep drift on the east slope of Mt. Lincoln. The thirty foot slide resulted I a lot of momentum. Luckily, I instinctively turned by pack down hill. It bore the brunt of an impact with a sharply twisted dead tree. It could have easily hospitalized me. Lucky it didn't seeing as there aren't too many hospitals in the near vicinity. There is no way my shoes could have held an edge on that steep of a slope. Overconfidence is bad.
Not too long after we came across Donner Pass and some pay out the nose bead and breakfast for rock climbers. We wandered in to fill our water bottles, saving the filter some work. On a whim, as I didn't really feel the need, I checked out the john. There on the floor, as if a gift from God, was a brand new water bottle. I graciously swapped my duct taped yet still leaky bottle for the fresh one. Before leaving I also helped us to two self serve bagels with cream cheese. On the off chance someone had ever put two bucks in the self serve jar for such chinsey bagels, I neglected to pay for karmic retribution. Well, that retribution goes both ways.
After leaving Abbey and J.P. we wandered up the ridge to lunch. The bottle I had been carrying in an accessible side pocket of my pack was gone. That left us two total. The new one and the last of the originals still with a piece of rope for dipping in the aqueduct. "At least we have two that don't leak." I pointed out.
"Yea, just like before." Dyl laughed. Maybe the new bottle was a gift. Maybe taking the food was dipping a little too deep into the well. They shouldn't charge that much but two wrongs don't make a right. It was a bit of a lesson for me.
Just an hour before camp we saw a large porcupine. I wanted a good picture of the bizarre looking creature and set out after it. Watching it slowly bumble away from me over the sun cups evoked my sympathy and I settled for a bad one.