Page 5: Oh, Shit!

Poo and I clambered back down the brushy hillside to the creek. Then we walked up it for a while until it got too steep and slippery. At that point we cut over west to the lower slopes of Bears Breast and started scrambling up to find the path I thought I had seen.

Long story short, when we did indeed 'find' it, it turned out to be nothing more than a game trail. Stupid and stubborn thing that I am, I kept thinking ‘Well, the real trail must be there … just higher up!’ So we kept going up … and up.

Later on, when examining the map which I didn't have at the time when I most needed it, I learned that the trail did indead switchback up the east side of the valley, along the lower slopes of Summit Chief. I just hadn't climbed high enough to find it. Important Lesson Learned: every member of the party should have a map.

Anyhow, there we were on the wrong side of the vally and it was getting kind of hairy. Even Poo was beginning to get scared. During one section, I would climb up a little ways, drop my pack and then come back to grab Poo. I would then carry her up to the pack, then repeat the process. At one point, I had to lower her about 6-feet, which she did not like at all. Shortly thereafter, I slid and fell about 10-feet and dinged up my ankle. It was then that I started getting kind of concerned myself. Well, actually borderline crying/praying scared.

You’d think that common sense would have kicked in earlier but noooo! I thought that if I just traversed along the shoulder of Bears Breast to Dutch Miller Gap things would work out fine. Yeah, that seemed like a good plan. But then Poo and I were suddenly faced with this huge gaping space —like hundreds of feet of empty air. At this point, I finally accepted the reality that we were not going to be able to manage the traverse. So down we went, ever so carefully picking our way down the narrow gulch worn by Lake Ivanhoe's outlet stream.

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