Who'll Stop the Rain

August 15 Mile 1686-
The rain I spoke of in my previous post has yet to go away. It's been 24 hours. We managed to hike 13.8 before given in. By lunch the trail had become a stream, the streams had become creeks, and the creeks had become rivers. The trail had us cross a creek today that normally would not be a big deal, but today it was a river. Shadow unhooked his pack straps in case he fell and slowly made his way across. I stood on the bank panicking. He dropped his pack off and came back to talk me through the knee high rapids. As the rain and the day continued we found ourselves in a bad situation. We passed the last shelter and pushed on another 4.3 miles. We were already wet and so was everything we had. The shelter we aimed for was just shy of Mt. Killington's summit. The trail on the climb up was like trying to walk against the current of a creek. Most of the hike was in ankle deep water. You would think that would bother us, but it didn't. As crazy as it sounds in Mid-August, our main concern was hypothermia. By the time we got to the shelter we could see our breath. Luckily the shelter was enclosed minus some windows without glass. We scurried to construct our tent in a buck to keep the wind gust from hitting us and changed into some dry clothes. After unpacking our bags, we found that our waterproof containers for our sleeping bags had stopped working. Now we lay in damp sleeping bags in a tent held up with string, in a bunk bed listening to the wind gust into the shelter windows and watching a chipmunk scout the area for a midnight snack attack. Our wet clothes are hung, but its not looking too good for a dry departure in the morning to Killington, VT.


Country Mouse and Shadow still NOBO (North Bound)