Of course, maybe it didn't help that I was telling people about the big, nasty fluffy things that live on the mountain and have BIG NASTY TEETH! I told them that if they saw any they should tell Jenny, because she had miracle panacea (banana chips).

We'd made it up about 200 feet when we encountered the first strange Horizontal Mountain Person (HOMP). She is a solitary type who likes to visit Mount Pattee bringing treats for the little NASTIES! But on this particular day she looked a big miffed that we were there instead. Don't think she could quite make us out (but she was just a bit boggling herself, with the red and pink knit cap and the plaid jacket and sagging flowered dress). I'm not quite sure, but she might have tossed us a dispirited peanut before taking her leave.

At about this point, we encountered the ghost of Jon Kilgannon, who had disappeared after a similar expedition two years ago (in fact, we'd gone searching for him last year, with no success). He walked along next to us saying "Boo" rather softly and holding his hands out in a semi-menacing way. I humored him by being terrified, especially when we threw a grenade and he picked it up and brought it back to us. But the catastrophe was avoided when he peeled the top off of it and drank it. (However, the grenade looked suspiciously like one of those little barrel juices.)

Megan Jeffery joined us late, and we had to send a party down to get her. Having missed the orientation talks, she was a bit confused about gravity. For awhile she was sitting on the cliff face! But I soon set her straight, and she remembered which way gravity had shifted. Luckily for her, the Warner Brothers Law of Gravity was in effect, and she never fell until she realized that she was hovering in mid-air.

We experienced a rock slide, and Damon broke his leg. We made a makeshift splint with his umbrella and my flannel shirt. Then we aimed for Base Camp A, where we could take care of him better.

Lucky thing, too. At Base Camp A were no less than two Buddhist monks (Matt Pyson and Jon Acheson), who gave us holy relics and imparted wisdom for the journey.

Meanwhile, Damon had to choose from among three packets of magic powder: one of which was poison, one of which was for healing, and one of which would turn him into Frank Sinatra. We figured that the green one was poison. The red one looked a lot like Frank Sinatra, so the purple one had to be healing...

At this time, Pierre bit the dust. He was knocked off balance by a piece of grass thrown at him by Andy, and he tumbled all the way to the bottom to lie in a bloody heap (not dead yet, but not at all well).

Damon's leg healed, and he got one of the Buddhist monks to go see if chanting the mantra and sprinkling the red packet over Pierre would do the trick. Of course, this brought up an interesting dilemma; would it be better to be near dead or to be Frank Sinatra? Or is it the same thing? And if we did succeed in transforming Pierre, would that only mean that now Frank Sinatra would be lying in a bloody heap at the bottom of Mount Pattee?

The question was not an easy one, and it wasn't answered, either. Pierre had a near-death experience where he walked up to just above Base Camp A and stood there watching us for awhile. Then the spirit rejoined the body, and they both danced off into the direction of Center Halls.