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We made it to the river where we were to camp that night. There was a newly installed long wooden bridge. The burros wouldn't cross it, planting their front feet in protest, obviously very afraid. Luckily I was experienced in belaying. Wrapping the rope around me, I laid back effortlessly while each burro's muscles finally tired enough to stop resisting (about 15 minutes a burro). In camp, the burros became like affectionate pets, helping themselves to our food stock and eating Claire's hat.

 

Fred told us to tether one burro at a time, the other wouldn't leave. But they keep getting tangled and about 3:00 in the morning I decided to employ an old Larry Moitozo trick. He had placed our burros across the river and let them free range. I was sure that the bridge would keep them on our side. But, in the morning they were gone. The tracks were clear. Upon being released, they had walked straight to the bridge and crossed without hesitation. After a mile back down the trail we lost their track. We hiked all the way back to Blaney Meadows with no sight of burros and to tell a tearful Fred Ross that we had lost his best stock.

 

In the morning, Penny, his daughter, mounted her horse and we started to retrace our steps. I remembered Penny from YSI days. We had spent a morning practicing rock climbing on some rocks. She found the renegade burros within half a mile, caught them, and now Claire and I retraced our steps, this time carrying our own packs and leading the unloaded burros back to the bridge where we had stashed their saddles and tack.

 

The next day we started off towards Pilot Knob, the goal for this trip. I had remembered scaling it with YSI kids in the early 60's. There were beautiful vistas in every direction. I wanted to share that with Claire.

 

We passed Goddard Canyon and I related to Claire an interesting trip with Larry that we had made, the goal being to climb Goddard peak at the far end of the canyon. Every day a storm would come up with drenching rain, but "never at night in the Sierra" Larry would chant. And he was right. Each day we hike higher into the canyon and everyday it rained harder. On the trail to our highest camp, I took off all my clothes and hiked with only shorts and raincoat, so I would have something dry to wear when we made camp. I used exertion to keep me warm. As John Urrutia and I picked a spot to set up shelter, a bolt of lightning hit about 50 yards across the river, completely vaporizing a tree trunk that was about 25 feet high. Without a word, John and I surveyed the remaining trees. Each one had been hit one time or another. Dave Rossum the Possum came off the trail - cold. I had never seen a person that shade of blue and I was afraid that we were going to lose him. We hunkered down for a few days of rain before the plan was changed to trek over Hell For-Sure-Pass into the next drainage, which was dry, showing no signs of rain for the past several weeks.

 

Well, as slow as Claire and I had become at hiking, and also losing those few days to the burros, we never did scale Pilot Knob. But we had a glorious time. When we got back to Blaney Meadows, Fred's son came over that night to shoot the bull around the campfire. He was full of stories, especially about Larry Moitozo, but his favorite one seemed to be about the time they could hear a horn blowing.