I'm climbing a snowy mountain, rather like Mount Hood, as if starting at Timberline Lodge. I get a ways up the mountain, and then realize I've forgotten something, I think my ice axe. I drop my pack and head back to the car to get it.

There are three ice axes in my car - my main axe, my spare blue axe, and another. None are perfect for the situation, and as I'm considering which one to take, one of my heavy wool socks falls out of the open door onto the ground, then the wind blows it away, down a slope of reddish scree, where it stops. The scree is too unstable and slippery for me to climb down there, at least without... an ice axe. I go back to the car to get one.

When I open the door again (driver's side rear), Charlie jumps out and starts running around. I'm calling to him, telling him to get back in the car, that he will be able to run around later but right now I have to retrieve my sock.

After all of this drama, I think I will give up climbing the mountain. But my pack is still up there somewhere. I wonder if it has become buried in the snow, or tumbled down the hill, and whether I will be able to find it again. It would be terrible if I lost it, with all the valuable and precious things that are in it, and it seems stupid that I left it up there.