Route Editor
Route Scout
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DESTINATION Sheep Mountain Peak 6996 - Mazatzal 45 Photosets 2011-05-02 2011-04-30 2011-04-29 2011-04-28 2011-04-02 2011-04-02 2011-04-02 2011-02-04 2010-12-20 2010-12-09 2010-12-09 2010-12-08 2010-12-08 2010-12-04 2010-12-04 2010-12-04 2010-12-03 2010-11-26 2010-11-19 2010-11-19
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| HAZ Member Vaporman's 229 Photosets 2010-12-31 2010-12-30 2010-12-30 2010-12-26 2010-12-26 2010-12-24 2010-12-19 2010-12-18 2010-12-18 2010-12-12 2010-12-09 2010-12-04 2010-11-26 2010-11-20 2010-11-14 2010-11-12 2010-11-07 2010-11-06 2010-10-21 2010-10-02
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After hanging atop 6910, glassing the area, and searching the northside a bit we eventually headed back down the ridge between 4B-5. Kenny & I thought that if Joe had bailed down this ridge, he would have dropped into ravine 5 and beelined for the trail to the east so that's exactly what we did and again hit some descent bushwhacking before obtaining the trail again. 
Made it back to camp at a descent time, setup my tent & such, and when other searchers came by like Joel & his friends we'd swap stories of what we covered. Ken C came back later and spent the night in camp with us. 
) swung by that morning and we told them that we covered the 5-8 area the day before so they headed for the 2-4 area as did I. I hiked the Thicket Springs trail until I got past peak 5388 and then contoured above drainage 3 on the rightside on a game trail until it became too thick and then I dropped down into 3 until it also became thick. 
So I slowly pushed up though I could feel yesterday's hike, mucho elevation gain, and the altitude slowing me down. 
When I reached the summit I met another searcher up there who left a flower on the summit as a memorial to Joe. 
He told me how horrible the ridgeline route was, so I talked him into joining me down that 3-4 ridge. We made fairly descent time down it and found evidence that someone or something had been down this ridge recently. In the upper section we saw some definite footprints and broken branches though that could have been SAR since we were still close to Sheep Mt. Further down the ridge, the five buzzards came back and were now circling the 2-3 ridge across from us... On our ridge, I was following at least a game trail though a rockpile below a scramble definetly wasn't left by deer and look manmade. 
I wish we had more time for searching but we were getting low on water, daylight, and energy. Somewhere around 5600 feet we hit a thick manzanita forrest and lost the trail and slowly bushwhacked our way down to ravine 4 where we were surprised to find loads of water and ferns lining the creek. 
We slowly made our way down canyon while it dried up and got thicker. I noticed we were now paralleling the trail and it was only a half mile to bushwhack over to the it, so left canyon 4 and went into a bushwhack thru Hell to eventually reach the trail. 
and it didn't get too cold in my tent, but woke up around 7am to it hailing. 
Now just healing up from all these scrapes & bruises, though having shin guards, helmet, long pants & shirt, leather gloves, and sunglasses greatly reduced the number of scrapes, bruises, or anything worse... 