After vacating camp at Crabtree Lake, the team broke up into two groups.  The lead group included Hal, who was the only person to have been on this particular trail before.  As Hal and company came to the above meadow, Hal remembered that it was possible to shortcut an elbow in the trail by cutting across the meadow and rejoining the trail on the other side.  The shortcut worked as advertised for group one...

Remember how I was telling you that the walkie-talkies came in handy?  Group one called back to group two to give them the skinny on the shortcut.  ...Now here's the good news - bad news part... the trailing group spotted the described meadow ok.  Evidence of this fact is contained in the photo above.  Tom and Kurt, members of group two, have successfully crossed the meadow... However,... and here's the bad news... They are about to turn left, the wrong direction, on the main trail.  

Now you might wonder how this could happen to a couple of Cal Tech grads.  Well, John DeAguiar claims... and this is an exact quote received via the radios... "My compass needle reversed polarity."  I thought he was joking, just trying to cover up his boneheaded error.  "No, no," John insists, "it really happened."   "Sure, sure," I replied, "what have you been smoking?" 

It turns out that John wasn't under the influence of some illegal substance after all.  He had rested his compass on top of the map, which was on top of the radio... Now there is a magnet in the speaker of the radio...