I’m glad we stayed in an enclosed cabin and not an open front shelter. It rained much of the night and poured as we had breakfast. But the rain had let up by the time I left around 7.
The theme of the day was water. Because of the rain, the trails were once again streams or puddles because the trail maintainers don’t seem to believe in drainage cutoffs. Also all the streams that cross the trail were bulging with current. There were two bridges out, with detours marked. One I was able to cross without submerging my feet (I can’t say “without getting my feet wet” because they were wet by 6:39 and stayed that way all day) but the second time I had to wade through a strong current halfway up my shins.
There was at least one beaver pond, and around 4pm I arrived at a lake about 200 meters by a kilometer. Sweet Pea, who had stopped a little back so that I was briefly ahead of her, caught up just as thunder was sounding from the north. There was a shelter where I had stopped, and I said I was thinking of waiting here for a bit to see if the storm materialized, and if it did I would wait it out in the shelter. Sweet Pea decided to go on and chance a downpour.
I sat by the lake for half an hour just enjoying the view and watching the clouds, but they didn’t seem to be thunderclouds, so after a nice rest I carried on. An hour later the deluge came. I stood still in my raincoat with my umbrella covering me and my pack, and waited about ten minutes for the downpour to taper, then carried on.
I got to the shelter quite late. Two guys are here in tents. They are expecting a third to arrive around 9 (now) because he’s very slow and also didn’t hit the trail until 9 this morning. I met him at lunch at a previous shelter: he retired from a programming job at Microsoft just two days ago and doesn’t have much hiking experience and finds it quite challenging. I feel like his friends could maybe support him better.
Time to wring out my socks and shove them down my sleeping bag so my toes warm and dry them out overnight. It makes putting them on in the morning a little less unpleasant, but I’m sure they’ll be wet again within the first hour of hiking.
Mile 1661.5 to mile 1683.2 = 21.8 miles.
A swollen river. Not the trail!
Sweet Pea
Lynx Paw oyster mushroom