The pirate looked at me in amazement: "You went up to Chain Lakes through the Necklace Valley? And you lived?" She sounded genuinely amazed. "Most people get there through Dutch Miller Gap!"

It is Halloween and the spooks are out, I thought. At least, this woman is giving me the spooks. She said her name was Jenny. I had never met her before, but even if I had I would not have been able to tell. It was a masquerade party and her costume was, well, effective. She had the standard pirate paraphernalia: eye patch, a red-and-white striped bandana, and a menacing dagger strapped to her belt like an open dare to any man thinking about inviting her to dance to the rumba music blaring on the stereo. But I barely noticed any of this. I could not take my eyes off of two things: the fake (I hoped) scar oozing blood so realistically from Jenny's thigh, and the fact that, in her torn pirate costume, I could see Jenny's thigh.

So when we had met five minutes before, Jenny was very cool and imposing. But we soon discovered a common interest -- hiking in Washington's Cascade Mountains -- and her coolness dissolved. We swapped stories on places we had been, until like a secret password, I mentioned that I had been up around La Bohn Gap and some nearby pools called Chain Lakes. That is when Jenny momentarily forgot that she was the coolest person in the room, and gave me the largest, if unwarranted, compliment I had received in a long time.

"Jeez, that is one difficult way to get in there . . ." Jenny was saying, still buttering me up. I could not understand why she was making a big deal about this. After all, the route I had followed was a no-brainer. It even had a trail most of the way. I did not think I had done anything to merit such praise.

And then Jenny dropped the bomb. "You know," she said, "the USGS map has La Bohn Gap in the wrong place."

And then it all made sense. Not Jenny's adulation, which still seemed exaggerated. But ten weeks of puzzlement. An old Alaskan sourdough once claimed, "I ain't never been lost. But I sure have been confused a few times." Well, I had been confused near La Bohn Gap ten weeks before, and had been puzzled ever since. In a flash, with Jenny's comment about the USGS map being wrong, my puzzle was solved. . . .

My buddy John and I made camp in the Necklace Valley surrounded by lakes that once made someone think of a string of pearls. We argued about the valley's name while we heated water and swatted bugs. John was not impressed by two of the lakes we had passed, calling them "mudholes." Geez, give it a break, I thought. I thought the setting was stunning.

It would have been more stunning, however, if the clouds would part and stop dripping on us. Maybe John was grouchy because of the lousy weather. We convinced ourselves that the next day would be better, that the sun would shine and warm us, and that we would have terrific views from the top of Mt. Hinman. Mt. Hinman is a broad sugarloaf of a mountain, offering an afternoon saunter along a western ridge that skirts above north-facing glaciers. John, ever the grouch, called it "Mt. Himmler." I put up with this moaning because Hinman seemed the perfect mountain for us: it was easy. In addition, we had a route description from one of Fred Beckey's guide books. Beckey, a legendary climber, is the author of three climbing guide books for Washington's Cascade Mountains. Today, few people head for any Cascade peak without first checking Beckey's route descriptions. Some people call the books "Beckey's Bibles," and the plaudit is well-earned. Little did we know that, in our neophyte hands and on Mt. Himmler, Beckey's Bibles could be dangerous.

The next morning we got part of our wish, as the rain had stopped. But the clouds hung low as we pushed up toward Mt. Hinman -- or Himmler -- via La Bohn Gap. Beckey's book is clear on what to do:

"From La Bohn Gap ascend talus and slopes (keep left of broad west ridge) 1/2 mile east to the ridge which runs N.E. at 6600 ft. Ascend this easy ridge (it crests along the top of the Hinman Glacier) and then east to the summit."

This made no sense to us. The map indicated that straight east of La Bohn Gap was a precipitous 1100-foot drop to Lake Rowena. Nonetheless, Fred Beckey said to start from La Bohn Gap, so that is what we were going to do. Besides, the pea-soup fog refused to let up, pretty much preventing any free-lancing. We could see our map and compass. We could see our photocopy of Beckey's route description. But we could see little else. Boulders and hillocks invisible at 75 feet loomed out of the fog when we got within 50 feet.

To get to where the map says La Bohn Gap is, we hiked to a broad saddle at 5900 feet and then dropped down and south onto a 5500-foot granite bench containing the series of potholes called Chain Lakes. We then turned east to scamper up a high narrow saddle prominently titled "La Bohn Gap" on the map. Here, at Beckey's starting point, we finally had to face the inconsistency between the map and his route description. He said to go east. But, just as the map indicated, east led straight down -- straight down!

What to do? We clearly were at La Bohn Gap, right where the map said. But we also knew we could not go east as Beckey instructed. East meant down the cliff. And somewhere through the fog at the bottom of the cliff lay Lake Rowena, not Mt. Himmler.

Then, in a moment of proof that two heads are not necessarily better than one, we came upon a solution: Perhaps Beckey meant north, not east! Heck, we all know the caprice of editors and typesetters. Some desk-bound lout probably inserted "east" into the text between bites of his pastrami-on-rye, thus changing Beckey's directions. Lesser climbers might not figure out such a screw-up, we thought. We, gonzo mountaineers, were not so easily put off. Inserting the word "north" where the text said "east" solved our problem.

Or so we thought. For the next 30 minutes we prided ourselves on the brilliance of our solution. We picked our way across a broad talus slope, hopping from rock to rock like kids at a park. Then two things happened that whitened my hair. First, I kicked off a rock that skipped down the slope out of view into the thick fog. And I did not hear it land. Second, the clouds parted enough to show me why. A golden ray of sun shone 50 feet below me and to my right. It shone into nothingness. It shone all the way down to Lake Rowena. Straight down.

That moment of sunshine illuminated our situation, but I did not like what I saw. We were traversing a broad cirque hanging over a 500-foot cliff band above Lake Rowena. It was like traveling across the inside of a gigantic cereal bowl. The sides of the bowl, however, were covered with rocks shaped like large Grape-Nuts cereal nuggets, some of which were sliding down into the pool at the bowl's middle. Our goal was now clear. We had to get to the other side of the bowl without triggering an avalanche of gigantic Grape-Nuts-like rocks that would carry us down into the pool below.

John also saw the abyss below us. We looked at each other and, without words, spread the distance between us, moved uphill, and stopped playing around. We kicked off several more tiny rock avalanches. Each time the rocks tumbled out of sight into the fog and were silenced as they swung over the cliff's edge.

It was at about this time that a crack appeared in John's and my theory of Beckey's screwed-up directions. "[K]eep left of broad west ridge," Beckey warned. In rationalizing the discrepancy between Beckey's directions and the map, we conveniently had ignored this warning. Now I realized that we were not to the left of anything, except the empty space above Lake Rowena. We were, however, to the right of a ridge which, the map said, leads north and then northeast toward the summit. Maybe, I hoped, there were two typos in the route description. Maybe Beckey meant "Keep to the right of the broad west ridge," as John and I now were. But I realized that this was more hope than reason.

At the top of our ascending traverse we reached and then followed the ridge top. Now things felt right, since this is what Beckey's directions said to do. I did not look forward to our return traverse on the slope above Lake Rowena, but by this time I had convinced myself that we had deciphered Beckey's directions correctly enough, and that any alternate route must be worse.

On our return, however, my partner's better sense finally kicked into gear. From the ridgetop above Lake Rowena, I motioned that we should head back the way we had come.

"No way," said John. "I am not going back that way."

This seemed foolish to me. Maybe John still was grumpy about the crummy weather. "Come on," I said. "We will get back to camp before it gets dark if we simply retrace our steps."

"I don't care," said the grump. "I am not going back across that slope."

We had a problem on our hands, and stopped to argue. I claimed that we at least knew there were no impasses the way we had come. Furthermore, we knew the route and would not have to stop periodically to check our location and direction. John refused to budge. I argued that Beckey's directions, as we had deciphered them, had a rhyme and reason. There must be something even worse ahead if we tried to alter our course. John responded that Beckey's directions made sense only because we kept inserting our own words into them. I responded with iron-clad logic, and called John a chicken. Even this did not work. So, finally, instead of turning south and heading across the cereal bowl above Lake Rowena, we turned west into the unknown cliffs hidden by the impenetrable fog.

We did indeed find cliffs. I now suspect there are not many cliffs on that northwest slope of Mt. Hinman's west ridge. But however many there are, we found them all. One after another, we stumbled into an impasse, climbed back upslope, and worked down another way. We spent a lot of time peering into the fog and imagining things. On at least three occasions I was sure that I could see La Bohn Lakes, a landmark we passed on our way up in the morning. Each time, however, my vision of the Lakes disintegrated into nothingness as the light shifted through the fog. Snow fields below us appeared like holes in the mountainside, suggesting impassable cliffs. And real holes in the mountain appeared only meters before we stepped into them. It definitely was not a good day for glissading down the snow fields.

It was during one of our stops to scratch our heads and figure things out that John spotted something unexpected: "Hey, there's a trail!" I peered through the fog with skepticism. But, sure enough, there it was. Not a regular trail maintained with shovels and picks. Not much more than a path for spring water run-off. But, clearly, a previously-trodden path angling downslope. This was welcome news, but still confusing. We were supposed to be on the wrong side of the ridge, the side Beckey warned us to stay off. But here was a trail. Clearly, somebody, or lots of somebodies, had been on this side of the ridge. What was going on?

We lost the trail and picked it up again several times. But it did not matter. By now we were off the rocks and on gentle heather slopes. We found several landmarks we had passed on the way up, and in short order were back in camp. As night overcame the fog, we drank quarts of hot cocoa and took turns belting out show tunes. Somehow, our easy trek had turned into an adventure, and we had returned safely. We were triumphant.

The puzzling inconsistencies remained, however. Why did Beckey's directions say to go east from La Bohn Gap, instead of north? Why did it say to stay to the left of the west ridge, instead of right? Why were there well-beaten boot tracks on our return path, when we were groping our way down the mountain?

I stared at Jenny the pirate with the stunned look that comes from sudden revelation. "Say that again?" I asked, even though I had heard her clearly the first time.

"What?" she said. "Oh, you mean that the USGS map has La Bohn Gap in the wrong place?"

I did not need to ask how she knew. Or on what authority she could make such a claim. I knew immediately that she was right. I also did not need to ask where the real La Bohn Gap is. I knew that too -- immediately. The answers to my puzzles became transparent, the puzzles that had pestered me from the moment I had stared after the rock I had kicked into the abyss over Lake Rowena.

The place the USGS map labels "La Bohn Gap" is a minor saddle 2/3 mile southeast of the real La Bohn Gap. We had traveled over the real La Bohn Gap -- it is the broad saddle at 5900 feet from which we dropped into Chain Lakes. The real La Bohn Gap is due west of Hinman's broad west ridge. From it, Beckey's directions make sense: Travel east for 1/2 mile, staying to the left of the west ridge, then turning northeast along the top of the ridge.

That means that on our way up, John and I were on the wrong side of the ridge! And on the way down we stumbled onto the normal route as described in Beckey's book! John, my grumpy, chicken partner, was correct to keep us off the slope above Lake Rowena. His obstinance led us to the gentle footpaths tread by other, less confused hikers . . .

Jenny the pirate was staring at me and saying something. I heard little, and for the first time since meeting her did not have to work to keep my eyes off her costume. In one statement she had solved 10 weeks of a nagging puzzle. Perhaps I should have felt embarrassed not to have figured out the map's error myself. But I didn't. Thanks, Jenny.