The Doodad

Yosemite's north boundary country boasts the Sawtooth Ridge, a serrated wonderland of supreme granite crackage. For the hiker trekking North to South, the ridge marks the beginning of the best of the Sierras. Before you stretches 200 miles of pristine rock, altitude, whiteness and blueness, and nonchalant marmots basking in the wind. You have arrived.

From the Sawtooth Ridge rise peaks and peaklets: Matterhorn Peak, Petite Capucin, Dragtooth (not "Dragontooth"), The Three Teeth: Middle, Northwest and Southeast Tooth (four out of five dentists have climbed each of these), The Sawblade, Cleaver Peak, Blacksmith Peak and last but not least, The Doodad.

The Doodad? There is actually a Sierran peak named The Doodad? Place Names of the High Sierras does not mention when or why this name was applied to this 25 foot granite cube perched precariously on the Sawtooth Ridge (see the nubbin of rock perched on the peak to the right):

Do you see it? That's it! That's the Doodad! On September 9th, 1996 I hiked with Turkey Tetrazzini Pete up Matterhorn Canyon and over Burro Pass and Mule Pass. I remember that trip, because on the way home I phoned Lydia from a payphone in Bridgeport on Hiway 395. She told me we were pregnant (Lydia and I, not Pete and I) with Sammy, our second child. That's what I remember about that trip. I don't remember seeing The Doodad.

Which begs the question, what is a doodad anyway? Webster says:

Pronunciation: \ˈdü-ˌdad\

Function: noun

Etymology: origin unknown

Date: 1888

1 : an ornamental attachment or decoration 2 : an often small article whose common name is unknown or forgotten

And from Roget's Thesauraus:

doodad: gismo, gizmo, gubbins, thingamabob, thingamajig, thingmabob,thingmajig, thingumabob,

thingumajig, thingummy, whatchamacallit, whatchamacallum,whatsis, widget, doohickey, doojigger, gimmick

The Doodad from 100 meters away:

The Doodad close-up:

The Doodad with climbers (These are not GI Joe Dolls perched on a little boulder):

I'm glad The Doodad actually wasn't called "The Thingamajig." Could you imagine the trip journal from a climber like Sir Edmund Hillary?

We pushed forward well past midnight, Tenzing Norgay and I, the wind howling like banshees and slapping our faces numb and the snow blinding us to our surroundings and all reality. Our exhaustion was total and devastating and our legs seemed fixed to the earth. Only with supreme effort and the breath of God could we budge them and inch forward. But then, out of the blizzard and the void which enveloped us, it appeared and stared us in the face...The Thingamajig.