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One has to find a strong branch around fifteen feet up and ten feet from the trunk. One has to be careful not to catch the rock in the crook of a branch so it won't come down. After many back packing trips I found this to be one of the most difficult aspects, depending on the accessibility of a good branch. I remember a guy a few years later, up in Marble Mountains but at a different lake we were found of going who had a giant four-hundred dollar pack in which with the rest of his gear he packed steaks in a cooler at the bottom. He was quite proud of it. He had his pack hoisted up about sixty feet, the highest I have ever seen. I looked at it and thought - it is only two feet from the trunk. That's no good. He was with what he called tender-feet - three middle age guys who apparently were not backpackers. He was the guide and expert. The next day when they were all out of camp a bear climbed the tree, snipped his pack down and tore it up; big claw marks all the way up the tree.
May have been second day at Sky High and we had breakfast. We laid our sleeping bags out on a big rock in the sun to air out. It was a clear and beautiful morning. We took a hike along the north lake shore heading west. The lake was long and narrow banked on the south side by the towering granite cliff. There were two smaller lakes that made a dog leg to the north at the west end. We explored these and were on our way back when clouds began to drift over from the south, and from behind the cliff so you couldn't see them till they were right over head.
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