Miles Hiked: 12.5
Hours Hiked: 6
I knew the weather forecasters had called for a severe thunder storm starting this afternoon around 3:00 and lasting through the night into the morning, with high winds and large amounts of rainfall predicted. So I woke up at first light and broke camp, packing up my tent and extra running shoes and headed down the trail early. My plan was (ever notice that almost every time I share with you 'my plan was...' the day ends differently?). My plan was to hike as fast and as far as I could before the rain started and then stop in a shelter and stay warm and dry and watch the rain. Then when the rain ended tomorrow I could keep hiking, thus continuing my streak of not hiking in the rain.
I hiked about 2.5 miles from my campsite to the next shelter in a little over an hour and a half, and by the time I reached the shelter it was pouring rain. I got there around 8:30 and met the five hikers who had slept at the shelter. Four of them packed up and headed out into the rain. But 'Merry The Hobbit' decided that he would hang out at the shelter until noon and hike out if the rain stopped. So I spent a relaxed and enjoyable morning laughing and telling stories with Merry the Hobbit. We are about the same age, he was in law school for awhile, and he enjoys writing. We alternated staring up at the consistent rain and asking-does it look like it is stopping now? No? Do you feel like hiking today? No? Me either.
By late morning there had been about five or six other hikers straggle in from the rain, spend an hour or two warming and eating, and hiking on to their destinations. At noon Merry the Hobbit decided that he could just take a zero day at this shelter after all; and I decided that I had already hiked 2.5 miles today, so I could wait until tomorrow to continue on. I started unpacking my bag-I blew up my sleeping bad and rolled out my sleeping bag.
But at two o'clock four new hikers arrived at the shelter. They were 30-40-something years old and were keyed up because they had hiked 10 miles in the rain today. They were in the shelter all of 30 seconds before Merry the Hobbit and I looked at each other and winked. One woman especially was quite loud, intrusive, and abrasive. We started packing our bags and within 30 minutes we were headed on down the trail. We had been enjoying the peaceful shelter, but with these four hikers I anticipated a not-so-peaceful evening. The next shelter was 10 miles away, so we hiked as quickly as we could in the rain. We climbed a fire tower with amazing views most days, but today all we could see was cloud. Merry the Hobbit was a great hiking buddy-he slowed down for me, taking breaks when I needed them and he didn't. He even waited with me after it got dark so that I didn't have to night hike alone. And we had a lot of fun-laughing in the rain, enjoying the colors of the woods in the rain, and telling even more stories. It turned out to really be a fun day of hiking-and my first time of hiking in the rain by choice, and when I knew I would not be sleeping in a bed near laundry and a shower tonight.
Merry the Hobbit and I reached the next shelter about 45 minutes after dark (I turned on my headlamp around 7:05 tonight). There were two 40-ish year old men hiking the Long Trail at the shelter. They had also hiked in the rain, but they were impressed that we had hiked after dark in the rain. We quickly set up our things in the shelter and fell asleep to the sound of the storm in the woods.
The pond (in the rain) near the shelter this morning
Merry the Hobbit climbing the fire tower in the cloud
Boardwalk in the storm
Beautiful bog along the trail-in the rain
Sounds awesome, Crystal! You got super mad skillz!
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