The fact that no one ever finds a bear skeleton is cited why we don't discover  the remains of bigfoot.   Scavengers are supposed to efficiently tidy up before damnfools come running along.   If I didn't know this was a hunk of a bear, I might want it to be a Bigfoot, look closley and there are a couple of fingers visible.  I raised a fuss over in crypto when I told 'em I could find 'em a dead bear.   I bought a camera and ran out there to photo what was left.  They got no idea what I am.

 

I wonder if  there are stickmen waiting in the deadfalls of cyberspace.  I sat here researching native legends of stickmen,  a topic closely related to the Sasquatch phenomena.   I  closed the site and opened a link to  http://www.indianchild.com  linked to my screen, titled "Stickmen".  I checked it out, and it was cute little stick figure animations on a kid's site.  Totally random Google synchronicity.  I logged off and got up to eat, and I did not see the folding camp chair that tripped me and pierced my solar plexus, making a bloody mess and knocking the wind out of me.  I separated my lower left rib from my sternum,  judging by the clicking in my chest.   This is wierd enough to be embarrassing.  Stuck by a stickman from the deadfalls of cyberspace.

I am struck by the fact that I have close calls that have nothing to do with climbing about as often as I do in the mountains.   It's highly unlikely that anyone thing will get you, but in the end it's absolutely certain that something will.  One morning I just didn't feel right about climbing, so I spent the morning in a hot spring instead.  I almost fell asleep at the wheel while driving home, and actually drove off the road.  It is amazing that we don't get cut to ribbions handling huge sheets of glass.  I wonder about the three famous guys that went to do a new line on Birch Mountain that some of us had an eye on.  One of them didn't feel like climbing, and stayed in camp while the other two bagged the new alpine ridge.   When they descended, the first guy was missing; he was found dead of mysterious causes, lying face up in a tiny creek.  Rumors circulated, but it seems that staying in camp was a bad call on this occaision.   I shouldn't maybe write about this stuff, but it seems central to my theme, obscure as it may be.  When you climb in the mountains, there is a focus that is lacking when you are on the ground.  That's the problem;  IT lurks where we aren't looking.