Rain

The weather forecast was legit. I woke up to the sound of raindrops on my tent. That was a first… As I stayed in my sleeping bag a little longer, I my mind grew worried. Some of my gear had gotten damp, and I could already tell that the outside of my tent was covered in mud from the raindrops that splashed around the dirt during the night. I was not looking forward to packing up. Or hiking out for that matter… That;s when I got a text from Jukebox, asking if she should get me a seat at their table. They were down at the Timberline Lodge for the breakfast buffet. I figured I might as well start this rainy day out on a positive note, so I told her I’d be down there in minutes. I quickly packed up my gear while it was still lightly raining. Rejoicing in the second (unlimited) breakfast, I asked the staff for some large trash-bags, one of which would sere as a liner for my pack and one to wrap around my foam-pad, which is strapped to the outside of my pack. When I got everything sorted, me and Big-Bro hiked out around 1130.
When we started hiking fortunately it had stopped raining, it was just very cloudy. With 49 miles left to Cascade Locks I’d hoped to get big miles in on this day, but with such a late start, it thought it unlikely to happen…
We stopped for a quick lunch in the woods, but hiked out again shortly after. It was damp and cool in the forest, and I preferred just to be moving to stay warm. The hiking went mostly through forests all day and was quite uneventful. I was just glad it wasn’t raining.
Big-Bro and I agreed to meet up at a campsite several miles up trail where we would have dinner. This would be around 1930, and at that point we would have covered 21 miles. In order to get some chores done in Cascade Locks on the day of arrival, this total mileage would not cut it. We discussed hiking on to the next campsite after dinner.
It would be another 9 miles extra, and would mean an additional 3 hours of hiking in the dark. As the sun was setting it grew very foggy, and we found ourselves hiking through a thick blanket of drizzle. My rain jacket kept me dry, and with my puffy underneath it I was not cold. However the wet bushes and branches on the side of the trail brushed up against my legs from the sides, soaking my shorts. It was a long, long grind through the wet night, and I was not enjoying the hiking at all. I also had pitching my wet and muddy tent to look forward to. Finally around 2315 I arrived at the campsite. I pitched my tent and cleaned up the insides of it best I could. There was still a ton of sand and dirt left in it though.
Today was tough on the mind. I’d been thinking about the rain all of the day. Rain was hard to imagine on several hot stretches on the trail, but I realized that this feat of nature could easily become one of the bigger nuisances we will encounter. Having to deal with wet gear is just really, really annoying.
Fingers crossed we will get sunshine soon.