Landed in Seattle last Saturday with plans to spend 6 days / 70 miles in the North Cascades backcountry. Foiled by wildfires, we bailed to Olympic National Park which seemed to have more consistently clear air than the rest of the PNW and no active fires.

After a long day of driving including lots of coffee and a ferry missed by 2 car lengths, we finally got on-trail around 6pm for a fast ~4 miles in to our first night at Gray Wolf camp. With just a little daylight remaining as we arrived at camp, we dropped our gear and looked to set up a bear hang before it got dark.

As my tried-and-shitty technique of throwing a rock tied to the end of the cord failed yet again, I searched the thick, mossy forest floor for the lost rock, and I noticed something strange in the dim light. An unusual looking stone? No, someone must have lost their stove, in an fancy-looking bag! I grabbed the stuff sack and realized it contained....a rock? We all looked at each other, our exhausted brains taking a moment to process, then, mouths agape in realization, made exclamations like "holy shit!", and "this is genius!" as we clipped that bag to our rope and hung a beautiful two-tree bear bag in seconds.

Somehow in 25?(!) years of setting up bear hangs and throwing just about every piece of gear imaginable into trees while swearing profusely, it has somehow never occurred to me to put a rock in a small stuff sack, despite always carrying a stove bag pretty much the perfect size–never mind the idea that a company would sell a stuff sack specifically for this purpose.

So, to the person who lost this stuff sack: thanks! Not only for the sack itself, which came home with me for future use, but also for turning me on to a much better technique for hanging bear bags!

Some unrelated pics from the trip: https://imgur.com/a/y6UCHlP