Day 150: Mile 2401.2 - 2419.7

Today I woke up pretty late--around 7am--because I had tucked my head under my sleeping bag in the night and missed the lightening of the dawn. And I poked my head out and heard: rain. And I looked up and, yep, rain droplets on my tent fly. It was raining. And it came in waves, first the little tappings, then an actual rain, with distinct drops, and even little trails of water starting to meander down my tent fly, then back to the little tappings. Well, that's not encouraging. Everything's going to get all wet! And I didn't want to get out, and even after I decided to get started packing up and got moving a bit, I got discouraged again and crawled back into my sleeping bag. And I remember Spielberg commenting on this on the AT, how much he hated tearing down in the rain, and he would debate whether to get it over with or wait it out, and he would decide to wait it out, and then it would be 10am and still raining and, curses (he used a stronger expletive than that), but he'd have to get it over with anyway, and now he'd lost all this time hiking. Well, I did finally decide to get it over with, after it seemed the biggest rain waves had passed and even the light tappings were diminishing, and I got out to a find a cloud had settled over the mountains in the night and that's what I'd be hiking through today.

As luck would have it, yesterday when I made camp I had been lazy and, instead of cooking away from my tent, had just cooked in my vestibule. And since this site is pretty cleared of trees, had just left my Ursacks, tied up, in my vestibule as well. But this meant I could do my rain protocol: pack up everything but the tent, put it all in my backpack, then emerge and just have the tent left. And so I did, and was slower than usual since I had to figure stuff out, but did managed to pack everything but the tent, then collapse the tent in the mist.

And then I got hiking. And I will say this: I always say to get up and get moving. Because I always feel better when I do. And that happened today as well: I felt a lot better about the rain when I was moving through it, rather than sitting through it in my tent. And I think the reason is twofold. First, it's probably chemistry and endorphins and somesuch that I don't understand. Second, it's because when I'm moving the mind becomes occupied and focused on something concerete, and it stops imagining. Because in my tent, waiting, my mind started wandering, and I started worrying about, hey, if I'm having trouble in the rain, what's going to happen when I'm in the freezing rain up by Stehekin? What's going to happen when I'm in the snow? Am I going to be able to cope? And all these worries resurface. But get moving, and you've got something to *do*, and the mind stops that sort of listless wandering, and those worries don't necessarily go away, but they sink far below the surface.

As for the hiking: in the morning the going was slow. The hiking was pretty technical, through a lot of rocky trail, and some outright scree in a lot of places. And I'm told the views from here are spectacular, and if you look back you can see Rainier lined up with the canyon, but I didn't see anything but mist and fog and cloud. Every now and then the mists would part a bit and I'd get the suggestion of these spires of stones just above the trail, the rock tearing up out of the dirt of the mountain, but those would obscure as quickly as they would appear. And that was the morning and early afternoon: in my rain gear, umbrella coming and going as the rain came and went, trudging along a tough technical trail, up and down but mostly, it felt, up. And slow, very slow.

The rain, by the way, was Washington rain. Only rarely would it actually rain, and then usually but a light rain. But it was a lot of, hmm, the Chinese is mi4 mi4 yue3, which translates to, umm, mi4 mi4 rain--you'll have to ask a Chinese speaker better than me to translate it--which is more than a drizzle because it has distinct drops with distinct tappings, but less than a rain. It's the type of rain that gets everything damp, but not necessarily wet.

The rain and clouds wouldn't let up until the afternoon when I finally reached a saddle and crossed over into another valley and saw blue skies over *there*. Why are there always blue skies overe *there*, and never over *here*? But then began a descent--still pretty technical, but getting better--down to Delate Creek and its falls, where I finally took a break. I thought to dry out my rain fly, because for a moment the sun came out--it had been teasing for the past couple hours, but then would go away and it would rain on me and I'd have to pull out the umbrella again--but it was a false hope, and I just ended up wasting time. Instead, just a little bit past the falls the trail entered a burn area, and here I could do things! Because here there was wind! There are two elements needed to dry things: heat (i.e., the sun), and wind, and while the heat was still flaky, the wind here was semi-reliable. And I stood on a fallen log, with one guideline of the tent fly looped onto its upturned roots, and held the other end out so that the rain fly flapped like a flag in the wind, and I stood there for over 15 minutes, rotating it around, letting it tumble and snap, until it was, well, not dry, but dry enough. And this was good!

And the trail from here got smoother as well, and I made good time. For which I was grateful: getting a late start in the morning--around 10am!--and then traversing the technical terrain made for very very slow going, but here I could finally, maybe, make up some miles. And the trail was going downhill at this point, and then it went through a valley where I had to cross Lemah Creek on a fallen log (and I still get a little trepidation whenever I have to cross a rushing creek), and then the little valley came to a sudden end (the little valley was very green tunnel, so it's not like I could see the end), made a sharp right and started a switchback climb. Only this climb, in contrast to the ones from earlier today, was fine: this was an infinite incline. And it wasn't just the slope, but it was the trail itself: the trail here was a smooth dirt thing, rather than the rocky technical stuff of earlier in the day, and even though I was going up, I felt I could make and keep good pace. And I did. The only problem was it was late in the day, dusk was here and evening was coming, and it was 5 miles to the top and camping. There were some campsites listed in the Guthooks comments, though, some random flat spots along what is otherwise a very shelf-and-cliff type trail, which were potential bailout points. So I started up, and passed the first makeshift campsite, which was very nice and had a magnificent view of the mountains across the valley, and was gung-ho and continued up to the second makeshift campsite, and by now it was dark and I barely found the campsite, and I decided to call it a day.

So here I am! A shorter day today--not even 20 miles. But the late start, and the tough terrain, explain that. And except for this last climb, the terrain here is indeed much tougher and more Sierra-like. So maybe I should employ more Sierra-like methods? Which involves not hiking faster, but longer: getting going earlier, taking fewer and shorter breaks, and just using hours to make up miles. Ah well, it's something to think about for tomorrow, for tonight I'm just in this little tentsite that's very slanted (even by my standards), cooking out of my vestibule again because it's cold out there, with my rain fly tightened down in case it rains tonight. But overall a tough day--tough terrain, lots of hiking in the rain, very slow, no miles--but at least it ended on a strong note. Is that enough to carry into tomorrow? Don't know, but it'll have to do!

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Some notes:

-- Campsite > Gravel Lake > Ridge Lake > Spectacle Lake Junction > Delate Creek and Waterfall > Lemah Creek > Makeshift Campsite

-- Today I also, finally, deployed my secret weapon. I was wearing my rain gear--jacket and pants--all day, but underneath the rain pants I finally converted my normal pants to shorts. And that helped a lot: my rain jacket and pants are fully waterproof so they don't breathe, so it's easy to overheat and start sweating. And then my clothes get wet because the rain gear doesn't let moisture out. But converting to shorts underneath, and pulling up my sleeves underneath up top as well, this helped alleviate some of that overheating, and helped me pick up some more speed. In fact, by the final climb of the day, I had rolled up even my rain pants and was hiking in straight shorts, just to let the heat out, even though night was coming on. It's amazing how warm you can stay if you *just* *keep* *moving*.

-- Today I met Central Time, a PCT hiker who had started NOBO, gotten to South Lake Tahoe, had a family issue come up and gotten off trail. Two months later he got the chance to get back on trail, so he flipped it: went up to tag the Northern Terminus, and was now working his way down. He was going to go as far as he could--he felt the snows always right at his heels--ideally down to the Oregon border (California being closed right now), but this was all bonus as far as he was concerned, so as far as he could. And he was from Tennessee--had that slight southern drawl--and was called Central Time because Tennessee was indeed in the central time zone (even though it feels too far east for that). And we talked some, about the trail mostly, and the weather: today he felt he had been chased by this rain system (which is odd because today I felt the same and we were going in opposite directions), but he was hopeful that after crossing this saddle it would clear up. I hoped so too, for his sake! And I asked about the trail ahead (for me), and about camping, and he said, well, there's camping in the meadow below, and after that there's a hill to climb, but there's some nice campsites at the top of the hill, by the pond. Although that's a long haul, he said. (And it turns out: he was right! I would try to make it to the top of that climb, but end up a mile short, and camped here instead of at the pond.) I didn't spend a lot of time with Central Time, but he seemed a nice enough fellow, perhaps a bit starved for conversation since it's a pretty late SOBO. I guess he could talk to the section hikers--I would pass a passel of those this day--but I don't think talking to section hikers is quite the same as talking to thru-hikers, and section hikers likely don't fully appreciate flipping--and all the emotions and rationales involved in deciding to do so--quite like a thru-hiker would. Suffice to say, I think doing the flip is a tough thing to do. You not only lose all your friends, you lose the *possibility* of all your friends: it's not like they'll suddenly appear one day because they happened to take a zero back in that town and you didn't. No, you just won't see them. And so suddenly you become very very alone, very singular, walking in the direction a lot of folks are walking, but still doing a thing that nobody else is quite doing. And that can be tough to handle, psychologically.

-- At the Lemah Creek crossing, the log was ok: pretty dry and wide enough to not cause undue fright. And I was so relieved when I got to the other side, but then looked up to see that the climb out this far bank was indeed a climb: a near vertical wall of dry dirt. And I put away my poles and instead relied on my hands to grab onto jutting rocks and pull myself up and out of the streambed. But that was unexpected: after the fear of crossing a log bridge, a bit of rock scrambling to calm the nerves!

-- The campsite was listed as a mile marker and not as an icon on Guthooks, so I took to counting the number of switchbacks to the campsite instead of constantly checking Guthooks (and thus wasting battery). And it was a count of 9 to the first campsite--which was awesome and which I passed up--and a count of 7 to the next campsite--which was narrow and heavily slanted and which I took. But this idea of counting switchbacks: it may not be a bad idea. Something to keep it interesting on the way up. I have tried this before on my Saturday hikes, but I always lose track of the count and give up. But for some reason, the count stayed with me this time, and quite clearly too. Maybe backpacking is different? Regardless, if I can now keep the count, then maybe it's something to deploy on all the switchback sections...

-- Oh, and I should probably talk about the scenery at least some. So for the morning there wasn't much to see besides mist and tantalizing rock. I will say that this sort of weather is great for photography: you set up a shot you like, wait for the composition to be revealed, then snap your 1/40th of a second. Or if you don't like it, wait 5 minutes and it'll change. Great if you're a photographer with a tripod and time, not so great if you're a hiker on your way to somewhere else. Some of the reveals were pretty nice: the valleys below, the juts of rocks above, but more or less I was just passing through. At around mid-afternoon, I came to the saddle between the morning valley and the afternoon valley, and from there the afternoon valley looked stunning: it was blue skies with puffy clouds over there, with the fog and mist clambering over the mountains behind me back there. It was definitely pretty, enough so that Central Time (who I met there) asked me to take his picture with that as backdrop. Just the quintessential mountain scene, the rocks all grays and deep blues, the slopes all covered in dark green, row upon row of ranges going back, and above it all blue sky and white cloud. I would have stared longer, but 1) I was talking to Central Time, and 2) I had to go! And finally, at the bottom of the valley described above was supposed to be a meadow with a bunch of nice campsites. Only when I got there, I didn't really see a meadow, just an open-vaulted green tunnel. But there were side trails leading off left and right, and I presume *these* went to an actual meadow with flat spaces, open views of the sky, and possibly, even, believe-it-or-not grass. But I didn't look!

-- Oh, and on the final climb, there was a switchback section early on where it seemed every 50 yards there was another stream, trickling or flowing away, across the trail. It was pretty incredible, and I played the "find the last stream" game, to try and fill up as late as possible to keep from having to carry as much weight. So after crossing every stream I would listen to hear if there was one ahead and, if so, would continue on. Until I didn't hear anything ahead, and I got water. And it turns out, I did indeed get the last stream! Optimization successful! (Then I loaded up on too much water, so optimization failed, but it was successful first!)

-- Camping cohort: none, just me. I like this site, though, because it's under trees. Should help if it rains tonight and tomorrow morning: should be able to avoid the bigger drops and get going earlier. And it's windy--I can hear it pretty loudly outside--and the trees are sheltering me from that too. (That's another reason I didn't go all the way to the top: from the pictures, the campsites are amazing but it looks pretty exposed up there.)