Lost hat stories

extreme discretion practiced in obscurity, that's the key to a long and productive stay beneath the radar in a park crawling with enforcement. a chuckle where a guffaw is called for, a cubbyhole bivi executed a few steps from panorama. a long string of placid days within the sanctuary is worth a little subrogation. moving about like a phantom is a small price to pay for whole summer of glad tidings.

early in that season i made a solo morning supply drop of fa gear below wildcat point and continued on down the grand canyon of the tuolumne on a light and fast recon planning a return to the paved world before afternoon t-storms. no shirt, purple cap, binos and brand new shorts so light and breezy they stuffed into their own little zippered back pocket. that was the operative feature that triggered my purchase. that the designers had achieved such compactness by omitting the critical mesh liner had not yet entered my mind ...

on the way down canyon i stayed on the trail which switched back and forth approaching the cascade of a river on alternate passes. i was on kind of a moving survey of the cliffs as they presented themselves anxious for the next "discovery" with the real studying reserved for the trip back up.

i've had a broken neck so i don't favor trotting down the trail looking over my shoulder as the unexamined aspect of the crag is revealed, nor do i cherish long sessions craning my neck straight up. for this reason i did my studying through the binos reclined, chin lower, knees up. lost in the vertical world, roaring water behind me, until suddenly i was startled by the presence of two older ladies well inside my "bubble"... demanding to know the status of my well being in an abrasive, east coast urbanite sort of way.

they seemed uncomfortably out of their element despite having spent plenty on getting over-outfitted. god bless them though for getting out there, maybe the only other folks in the canyon that day. regrettably, across the big cultural divide i may have returned a hint of the same disdain that they served up to me.

[imperiously] "what are you doing on your back?"
[dismissively] "looking for routes."

uncomprehending, they scuttled away and on up the trail, clucking. tone alone can upbraid and penetrate a reign of cordial discourse in pretty short order. but as they say, out of sight out of mind, and so i go bounding straight up river amongst the boulders and lofted mist to the next vantage. discovery is so intoxicating, connecting features, sussing out lines imagined through the looking glass. this is truly a golden world.

criminy, here they come. the trail must switchback to right around here. i gotta go. so hippity hop through the boulders, cuz the crags make a little more sense when your not directly beneath them, but to sidewalk people avoiding the trail might seem furtive, and to high rise apartment dwellers binoculars are known indicators of voyeurhood.

more glassing, more glee, endless potential. it's going to be a great summer. study ... study. oh man, now they're ahead of me, and yet another pass is in order because it's time get moving to the trailhead.

you know, it's not personal when the guy on the interstate can't decide if he wants his cruise control a quarter mph slower than you, then faster than you then slower again. but by about the fourth pass, it becomes it's own kind of awkward ...

well dave and i got up on the crags and on a really windy day my particular purple cap took off for the summit, straight on up and over. we searched around for it on top, but no joy.

as the weeks went by we were befriended, mostly due to dave's gregarious nature i'd say, and were treated to wonderful hospitality at the high sierra camp. it began at the faucet where there was piped spring water that didn't need to be treated. otherwise i would have steered clear, low profile you know. but morning pooper and evening shower, breakfast and dinner with the staff ... well i can be seduced by generous comradery and gourmet cooking.

lot's of good fun around the table and maybe six weeks in or so, after another new route to the same summit, dave and i came upon the purple cap. i reported the happy happenstance at the dinner table, and wheels started to turn. then laughter and mirthful finger pointing that left us wondering wtf. there had been a big hullabaloo, purple cap guy to be the brunt of it, and dave was still struggling for a clue. explanation followed:

the cap pegged me as the "root" seeking stalker that the perturbed ladies had reported ... and the incident i learned ... included a ranger hiking in and surely had i been located ... would have and still could have ... resulted in charges of indecency due to ... (on the side of the roaring misty trail in presumed solitude, i reclined in binocularis dilecti and unaccustomed short shorts) ... my failure to maintain the clenching of an aspirin between my knees.

a pit formed in my stomach as blood drained from my face, as food turned to stone on my fork, as the hills echoed with the broadcast laughter of friends by the tablefull. i had become "a person of interest" despite pretty diligent efforts to step lightly. nobody really considered the dreadful implications but me, and my partner was laughing the loudest. my only consolation was that these folks might have dialed it down a notch if in their mind i had made a plausible pervert.

i still shudder to think that even in paradise, incarceration is a mere tripwire away if confronted with the self-corroborated complaints of two misplaced dowagers calling for back up from flat hat badgery. there but for fortune woulda gone i

... my failure to maintain the clenching of an aspirin between my knees.

southwest wyoming, '80-'82, latching pipe in the derrick, six 10 hour days/week plus 3hrs/day travel to/from the rig. loved my job, couldn't miss a day. literally. 80 hours a week with the same roughneck crew got old though. some people belly up to the bar to find a kindred spirit. in my case, my bros were finishing up the season guiding in the tetons. hitchhiking served as something of a social enterprise so daybreak sunday morning i bellied up to the dashboard of whatever rig i might hail while sashaying up the road to GTNP, traveling lite in short sleeves and a cowboy hat.

great day on the hill took a turn for even better when my climbing partner, with whom i'd done a fair bit of damage in the beartooths, pulled up alongside me south of pinedale as i marched homeward with a thumb in the air. he was finishing up a season of geology fieldwork in the wind's and i was invited to join his outfit for steaks and a slideshow up at the ranch. couldn't pass it up.

afterword, he delivered me to farson. just an intersection with a blinking light and little else in those days. traffic went from slow to nil as midnite passed, chilly too. i sure regretted not taking things into my own hands when a bigrig pulling a lowboy rolled down off south pass, crept thru the intersection and steamed off into the 40 miles of black that separated me from my bed in rock springs. my crew would be honking for me in about 4 hours, and the rig doesn't pull much pipe out of the hole without a derrick hand.

the sound of another diesel signaled a second chance, so i hunkered in the shadows till the tractor passed, then ran out to intercept the tanker he was pulling, which offered a big spare tire, suspended a couple feet below the belly. there was an instant to decide or spend the night and miss work. so there i sat, and it was up thru the gears as i stuffed my hat under the lid of my daysack.

positively no one could have seen me, and there was no reason i could fathom why we should be slowing down on this empty stretch of open road. i couldn't see forward at all but the fence posts were being swept by unsettling red flashes, we were creeping up to a very isolated hotbed of emergency vehicles, passing slowly by cops 10 feet away, visible from the ribs down, swinging red flares. finally a rolled sedan and a wrecker scrolled by and to my great relief we were grabbing gears again.

as we rumbled into rock springs those big old wheels that had been screaming in my ears revealed themselves in the city lights. they had an authoritative presence as i pictured my departure from this beast. i was hoping for a full stop, low stress affair, but it was not to be. the driver had timed a green arrow onto the westbound I-80 and i was facing a shanghai to possibly salt lake if i didn't launch NOW. i reached out and put a death grip on a pipe that ran alongside the flank of this thing and as expected my economy class seat fell irretrievably away. i hung there in front of those dually's and ran in place till i was sure of my footing, then simply let go and continued on over to the shoulder, just partway up the ramp and two blocks from beddy-bye. piece of cake. tucked myself in feeling snug and smug.

though i never saw my hat again