During the night it poured. I felt drips on my face and kept feeling the tent for
leaks, perhaps some place the rain fly was touching the tent. I felt the ground to
see if any streams had decided to use our campsite as its new route.
But somehow I managed to make it till morning in a fairly dry state.
That wasn't going to last however.
|
Remember how I pointed out how dry the ground was around our tents the previous
night? In the morning we felt fortunate there was just enough "high ground"
to put our tents on that we didn't wake up in a lake.
|
Remember how I pointed out how peaceful the stream was that we camped by?
I bet you thought I was just doing that to make you jealous of the peaceful
scenery we saw. Remember how I pointed out that the rocks would be easy to
hop across? We ended up wading knee deep through this stream, with a very
strong current and lots of silt coloring the water. I learned
that waterproof boots are very good at keeping the water in.
|
Remember that "treacherous crossing" I mentioned yesterday? That crossing
that other people had no problems with? Well, we decided to chance it because
we wanted to avoid the 5 mile detour (not including the backtracking).
Here's the crossing. Though you can't really tell
from this picture, there was no way we were going to be able to cross it.
Now look at the map above. See how close we were to the next section
of trail? See the backtracking, the drop down to that lake we didn't want to
visit and the ascent back up? That wouldn't have been so bad in nice weather.
|
A lot of the trail looked like this today. We were planning on going about 15
miles, but we ended up going 22. We made pretty good time though, almost making
it to where we were originally planning on camping. But when we found a site,
we just quickly threw up our tents and climbed in, cooking from our feeble little
shelters.
|
Remember how I pointed out how dry the ground was around our tents the previous
night? In the morning we felt fortunate there was just enough "high ground"
to put our tents on that we didn't wake up in a lake.
Remember how I pointed out how peaceful the stream was that we camped by?
I bet you thought I was just doing that to make you jealous of the peaceful
scenery we saw. Remember how I pointed out that the rocks would be easy to
hop across? We ended up wading knee deep through this stream, with a very
strong current and lots of silt coloring the water. I learned
that waterproof boots are very good at keeping the water in.
Remember that "treacherous crossing" I mentioned yesterday? That crossing
that other people had no problems with? Well, we decided to chance it because
we wanted to avoid the 5 mile detour (not including the backtracking).
Here's the crossing. Though you can't really tell
from this picture, there was no way we were going to be able to cross it.
Now look at the map above. See how close we were to the next section
of trail? See the backtracking, the drop down to that lake we didn't want to
visit and the ascent back up? That wouldn't have been so bad in nice weather.
A lot of the trail looked like this today. We were planning on going about 15
miles, but we ended up going 22. We made pretty good time though, almost making
it to where we were originally planning on camping. But when we found a site,
we just quickly threw up our tents and climbed in, cooking from our feeble little
shelters.