Peter, I'm glad you liked it :-). I did keep a log of that trip, but I didn't look at it before writing my post - that was my first solo trip and I have a very vivid memory of every day of it. But I've now dug out that log. My memory was pretty good. I was actually lost for longer than I said. I had camped the night before at the lower Rae Lake, Then, my log says, "First I went about 1-1/4 miles past the turnoff for Baxter Pass, which was not marked. Coming back up I asked several people - including two rangers - and no one knew?exactly?where it was....Finally I met two men who had dayhiked down from Baxter Lakes and who showed me the trail. They had just come off it, and it took them ten minutes to find its beginning again. All this cost me two hours. Then the trail itself - three miles at the most - took me four hours. It is a steep, up and down, faintly marked trail. Few people are on it. For the middle three hours I saw no one. I lost the trail completely twice, and stumbled on it again. I was not?extremely?upset, but I was upset. At a lot of other points I had to stop and look for widely-spaced cairns. If I had known in advance, I don't think I would have done this alone....There were compensations - a herd of?fifteen?bighorn sheep of which I got about four pictures, and later, four bighorn sheep (right after I lost and found the trail the first time), one of whom was about fifteen feet from me - and I didn't get a picture."
My account doesn't mention me taking off my pack repeatedly and using sighting back to it to not get turned around while I scouted ahead for the trail, but I remember that really well because it weighed 55 pounds and I had to keep putting it back on...
I remember the herd of 15 bighorn sheep - it was near the start of where I turned off. I don't remember the four bighorn sheep later.
I camped at Baxter Lakes that night and went over the pass the next morning. I arrived at the top at the same time as 15 Boy Scouts from Palos Verdes. I lived in New York at the time, and as a joke I had packed in with me the front page of a NY Times, planning to have someone take my picture on the top of Baxter Pass while I was "reading" it. So, I asked one of the Scout leaders to "take a picture of me sitting under the Baxter Pass sign reading the front page of the August 4 New York Times...He thought this was as hilarious as it undoubtedly is, and the whole troop gathered to watch, and somebody applauded when the shutter clicked."
I did not want to descend the whole 6000', or whatever it is, that day, so I cowboy camped partway down and went the rest of the way to the trailhead in the morning. On that last morning I encountered my only rattlesnake, which I skirted around. At the trailhead, "No one was there. All the campsites were empty. About 10 cars were parked in the backpackers' lot....I filled my water bottle and started walking down the road. After an hour I reached a campground" and got a ride from there.
I have old photos from both the 1975 trip up from the east side and the 1981 trip. (I don't in fact have bighorn sheep pictures, but I did find the one of me reading the NY Times at the top of the pass, lol.) I don't have a scanner, but I've taken photos of my photos and I'm linking them here for what they are worth :-). (They all seem to be sideways, sigh, and I can't figure out how to turn them.)
I sure would love to do this again, but I'm 78 now and that's not going to happen :-(.
1981 -?
1975 -?https://photos.app.goo.gl/rwVyVpWzfJemJjhz5
