Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Cold, Wet, Aimless Hiking
08/25/04
If I ever see anyone stealing or vandalizing backcounty signs, I'll beat the crap out of them.
Walking today, I experienced floating and bouncing rain. I think it was a little bit of everything: rain, snow, hail, sleet, and, uh, bouncing rain. The snow line definitely dropped last night. The snow is much lower on the mountains that I can see. The snow seems to be sticking too. Today, I didn't take my rain jacket off all day. I needed it for rain protection and warmth.
I did see the sun today. It was at 7:32 PM, and it lasted for 9 minutes, not that I was counting.... It happened during a navigation stop, something I'd not had many of because I'd get too cold not moving for that long.
As you might guess, it was cold and wet all day.
I had wet, wide crossings all day too. At one point through the rain and flapping wind, I could see that there were hikers ahead of me. I caught them at a river crossing. They were making elaborate preparations to cross a wide river, changing shoes, rolling up pants, and discussing strategy. I didn't stop, even when one asked my how deep it was. Without breaking stride, I said, "I'm about to find out," and stepped into the crossing. I didn't even look back. I had to keep moving to keep warm. It wasn't too deep or too cold. The same group caught up with me while I was having lunch. They came all the way from Kentucky to be in this misery.
To get were I wanted to be, I headed toward Cross Lake (WY17). That would put me on the purple route into Big Sandy Lodge tomorrow.
When I got into camp, I discovered that a lot of stuff in my pack was wet, even stuff inside silnylon stuffsacks, even gear in two silnylon stuff sacks. I assume since it was all under pressure from being packed tightly into my pack that the water molecules had a chance to overcome supposedly waterproof barriers. Back to plastic bags for me.
The biggest bummer was a wetter-than-when-packed sleeping bag. I'm glad I unbounced my synthetic parka. It's what's going to keep me warm tonight.
When I was throwing the line for my bear hang, pug-faced owls kept on trying to catch the bag at the end of the cord. It took me several tries to get the cord on the correct branch at the right place, and with each throw, they'd swoop out of nowhere. It was a little odd.
