Reinhardt, Loa, Monique, Loren, Katrina and Riley. Met them at Devil's Postpile. I can't vouch for the spelling of any of their names. Except for Loren. His name was carved or burned into his diminutive walking stick. So I'll wing it. Reinhardt was the first to speak to me, pointing me out to the three kids as if I were a deer or a marmot. We got to talking. Reinhardt had a strong accent, but I couldn't place it. It wasn't until the stunning Loa told me she was from Switzerland that I clicked. He was a friendly fellow. We talked of all things backpacking, in particular-as most of these conversations gravitate towards-the subject of bears. His daughter Monique showed up moments into the conversation. "Did you find anything?" she asked. "No, but we met him," Loa told her, "He's been out since July fourth or something." Well, no. I spent the fourth of July recovering from an all-night John Digweed/Sasha show at the Shrine in LA, but I wasn't going to downplay the trip by a month if it was going to score me some points. One of the kids was making like Zorro and batted my walking stick with his own. Reinhardt admired my walking stick, and it is, in fact, an impressive hunk of wood, but unlike Loren's, it was barren of any shields. These shields were the European type, just like the ones I'd seen at Vermilion. "The European tradition has arrived in the US!" the display box had trumpeted, over a pathetic choice of one bland souvenir shield.

Click here to read about a squirrel.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I so admired those shields on Loren's staff, and Reinhardt and I so lamented their scarcity here Loa asked for my address, promising to send me a bunch. I would have to climb the mountains first to earn them, wouldn't I? We protested. But I had told her that I had been talking of going to Switzerland anyway and it would motivate me to climb those mountains. I could walk into a travel agency, dump the shields on the counter and say, "I wanna go there!" I suppose I wasn't in the midst of planning some trip to Switzerland, but the vision of Loa before me was enough o convince me that it had been a lifelong dream, and that I was scrounging every penny for airfare. So I gave her my address and we all parted ways. The energy I gained from that encounter could have sustained me to Tuolumne Meadows.