Wow what a day. A high high and a low low.
To start the day, I ran into two guys I hadn’t seen for 800 miles! I’d hiked with them during my first stretch on the way to Julian, and been following their progress in trail registers the whole time since, hoping I’d be able to catch them. They took a few more rest days lately (sort of – they hiked half dome which wasn’t restful but wasn’t making pct miles), and I couldn’t be happier to see them. I’d been feeling pretty lonely the last few days, and there were no other hikers I’d rather see.
We only got about half a day together before the storm. Now, I’ve been rained on up here pretty consistently, and this one started out around 1pm innocent enough. But it just kept raining, and by 3pm when it had gotten much heavier I resigned myself to it not letting up any time soon. I hiked on as best I could, though there was enough volume of water that some of the trails were becoming streams.
It was also pretty cold. When rain is coming down cold and soaks you through, you get cold. And the intermittent hail was a decent size – when moderate sized hail hits what you thought were numb fingers, you quickly realize you still have feeling cuz those things HURT.
I eventually had to stop when I literally could not cross what was normally a stream but had become a torrent of water. There were established tentsites at that location, but they were quickly becoming flood risks – a couple that had already set up their tent was forced to move right as I arrived. I ended up deciding to pitch my tent on a little berm that seemed like, in the worst case scenario, streams would pass by on either side. The slope wouldn’t be the best for sleeping, but being flooded out would be worse.
I started pitching my tent in a lull that lasted all of 20 seconds. By the time I was set up, the whole tent was soaked – water between the ground cloth and the tent, water in the tent itself, and the rainfly even had some on the inside. Since I was already completely soaked, it made my life a little simpler.
I drug my bag underneath one of the rainfly vestibules and sat myself down inside the tent but with my feet poking out. I’ve got a half a microfiber camp towel with me, so I spent maybe 15 minutes soaking up water from inside the tent and wringing out the towel by my feet. This was only around 4-5 pm so I hoped if I got rid of standing water and got the tent interior to just damp that it could evaporate a bit before I gave sleeping a shot.
Eventually I got rid of most of the standing water, and my own dripping was the biggest issue. I changed into my only semi-damp wool sleeping clothes which made a big difference in my body temp. My puffy down jacket was also decently dry so i tossed that on too. I’ve also got a foam sleeping pad which stayed pretty dry, so I could sit and lie on top of that without soaking up the moisture from the inside of the tent.
Eventually, the rain stopped and I waited as long as I could to go collect more water – the problem with a big big rain like that (turns out 2.5-3” in my area with flash flood warnings) is that it washes out all of the poop in the woods into the waterways, not to mention dirt and whatnot. When I collected water from a side stream around 7pm, it was only moderately murky. I decided to trust my water filter – it was worth it to have a real dinner to give my body fuel to stay warm.
Heading to bed, I’m less worried about being cold than I was. My sleeping bag stayed pretty dry, so as long as I stay still on top of my sleeping pad (no small feat given I’m on an incline) it’ll stay dry and I’ll stay warm. I’m keeping my puffy on inside my bag, which means I’m using my tortillas as an emergency pillow to keep my head, and the top of my bag, off of the wet tent. I think tonight will be fine, but when I was soaked through and cold I was as nervous safety-wise as I’ve ever been while backpacking.
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