TWO bumbling black bears. (AH - AH - AH) Thanks, Count from Sesame Street. You're the best...


Oh to have some crampons and an ice axe and a rope and a harness and someone who knows what teh hell they're doing up there, and extra time and extra food and sufficient energy i.e. not being sick... I wanna try out the new peepers sans-glasses on something like this.


A lovely young tree at my off-trail campsite above the bowl past Vista Ridge.


Camp with a warming, light-giving fire. I think I may have made it about 7 miles that day before I couldn't go on any farther. With my last remaining energy I went off-trail up to a ridgetop and then went higher and higher until I found a suitable spot with a worthy view. Having sat my pack down I went exploring briefly and then sat to read the map and plan for the next day. Glacing over at my stuff I realized I was face to face with a HUGE mountain goat, all white and wooly and wild with a fierce mountain stoic quality. I strove to ruin the moment by taking its picture but the powerful beastie wanted none of that and scrambled off over a cliff I would have sworn was impossible to walk on. So it goes.


Sunrise the following morning. The goat never came back, despite my attempts to lure it with my mountainy musk and patented horny goat-calls.