<div>Well, after 2 beautiful weeks going south from Silverton (now in Salida) and the prospect of an enjoyable hike weather wise to Mexico, I feel it's time to confess. I am that "un named" hiker San Gabriel referred to who lost his pack in the vicinity of Rock Spring 18 miles south of Monida Pass, Montana. There was quite a buzz back at the motel in Lima by the time I returned, so I thought I'd set the story straight. In short, at the end of the day, I had hiked the pass up to and through the spring, and following Wolf's direction to walk by the trough and ascend the meadow, I failed to notice faint tread to the left going up the valley and crossed to climb the meadow ascending the ridge directly ahead, thus becoming, yet again, misplaced. I wandered around a while, tried to figure my gps screen (I did not then have OOO's magical mystery tour), suddenly felt tired, angry, etc., found a flat place and decided to camp (6pm), to take up the chase in the am. Putting down pack and gps, for some reason I decided to see what was on the other side of the stand of trees topping the ridge, and brightly followed the setting sun for a bearing. Getting back down to the valley floor, I thought I saw a post at the valley head, and walked up the valley floor to find indeed a CDT marker...yea. I then thought I'd "triangulate" my way back to the pack. Well....I searched until the darkness and a cold wind made me burrow under some tree branches...shorts, t shirt and long shirt being worn, bandanna, cap, dipping cup, and a small amount of gorp I grabbed before setting out were my only resources. I shivered through the night, eating gorp to make heat. The whole next day I searched, returning periodically to the spring for water. At one point I stripped a big pile of spruce boughs for a nest next to the spring. After 12 hours of searching I returned to the nest, very hungry and starting to worry about hypothermia..if it rained I was toast. The next day I had to decide whether to look some more, try to hike back (I was not sure of my strength), stay at the spring and hope someone might come by...it was so seductive to think I could find my pack any minute and all problems were solved. I looked in the am, came to the spring and met San Gabriel, who gave me some granola bars, an emergency plastic poncho, and his fuzzy pink blanket. I went back up for a few hours of searching, and around "suppertime" in came sobo Duane, who had got the story from SG...Duane saved my sorry butt...had lot's of extra food which he cooked up for me, extra down clothing, and the determination he would stay until we figured out a solution. I spent the second night (almost warmly) in my nest, and the next day we conducted a grid search using gps and compass over a large area...I always had a feeling we were at it in a certain section, but did not find anything, including the poles. After another night, he gave me food for the walk back to Monida (and $100 loan) and continued south. Having NOTHING in the way of ID, the folks at MT. View Motel advanced me cash on the credit card receipt they had in the register from my stay...I started the ID/bank ball rolling, took a bus to Oregon for sanctuary at my sisters' (a scary trip with no papers), re equipped for $1,800 (ouch) and jumped back on at Silverton so as to not worry about weather in the San Juans, etc. Wyoming will give me a goal for next summer.</div>
<div>So...query...what happens IF you were to lose YOUR pack..we most all set it down at some time to get water down the ravine, look for a dump place, etc...I still don't know how or why we could not find the thing, but we didn't....food for thought and discussion. cheers</div>
<div>ron "zen quake" dobra</div>
<div>at '89, pct '07, cdt sectioned '09</div>