It rained all night long without letting up. I finally couldn’t wait any longer and got up to pee 5. It would seem that, although trees provide protection from heavy rains, they continue to drip for hours afterwards. It wasn’t clear and glorious, but it wasn’t raining. I actually have no idea when the rain stopped. I do know exactly when the sobos woke up because they didn’t even try to remain quiet. They were all gone by 6.
Our alarm went off at 6:30 so I just went ahead with my breakfast preparations. I asked Bunny where her wet soak container was so we could have hot granola. She said bottom of her pack, so she had to settle for fresh pastries and coffee (pop tarts and instant coffee, but boiling water made with love). I heard snoring on two sides as I was making breakfast. Bunny to my right and Someday across the camp. Since it had rained most of the night and they don’t have an abundance of rain gear, we decided to just chill and play skip-bo until they woke up.
Around 8 they started stirring about. We kind of figured they’d want to go for shorter miles today in order to have time to dry things out. Someday was all for putting in 15 miles. He said he was cold and wet and preferred to push on to generate heat. We had a shorter option to put as at the base of Goat Rocks tomorrow so we could begin the ascent first thing in the morning. Instead, we will go over Goat Rocks tomorrow afternoon and get into White Pass on Saturday afternoon. The longer day today is the better option for a couple of reasons: the mornings tend to be cloudy so we wouldn’t have any views from Goat Rocks, and Someday and Wea need to make it to Snoqualmie Pass by next weekend. They can’t waste an extra day now.
We took off around 9:15 and said we’d see them down the trail. They still have shy bowels around relative strangers so we let them have some quiet time. We stopped at a meadow by a pond 2 miles down the trail. The sun had finally broken through after two days, so we tried spreading our wet gear out to dry. A nobo, White Rabbit, passed us and said the weather is supposed to be great for the next couple of days. After about 20 minutes, we just couldn’t take the mosquitoes and decided to pack up and go before Someday and Wea caught up.
Even though it wasn’t even 40 when we woke up and it still hadn’t even warmed up to 50 by the time we took our first break, there were still several fool hardy mosquitoes about. We heard some staggering statistics about the number of mosquitoes per hectare and the fact that there just isn’t enough mammalian life to support that number. The little f@$&ers are fighting for their lives. I don’t feel sorry at all that the majority of them will die before they ever get their first taste of blood. When you can’t even pee without getting bitten, no sympathy here.
We took another break in about 2.5 miles. Bunny was insatiably hungry today, so we ate our lunch and next snack at this break. As we were finishing up, Someday and Wea caught up. We had originally chosen the spot because it was in the sun, but the clouds blocked it out again. We walked together for a few minutes until we found another sunny spot. Someday immediately dropped his pack and laid down in the sun. We never saw them again.
We kept going and caught up with White Rabbit again. He was drying all his gear in a sunny spot. We considered joining him except he was wearing a headnet and said the mosquitoes were terrible. We turned to go when Bunny got a ROPA. For those not familiar with the term (since I made it up today), ROPA stands for Random Old Person Ache. This is usually a pain that comes from nowhere, is damn near debilitating, and then goes away almost as fast as it came—all without explanation. I’m sure is probably some internal organ switching over to a backup system. Eventually there are no more backups and then you die. Bunny just took a step closer to death.
In a boat (were spending a lot of time with Canadians these days) another half a mile, we found a wide open rock patch in the full sun without mosquitoes. We decided to dry out all our stuff and wait for Someday and Wea. This became a happening spot. We stayed here for almost an hour drying our gear. White Rabbit caught up and chatted for a bit and then 3 more sobos joined us to dry out their gear. We waited as long as we could, but we’re old and slow and need all the time we can use. They are faster than us and will catch up. We figured they had dried all their gear and were just 10 minutes behind us.
The next 8 miles were easy. Bunny had recovered from her ROPA which had manifested itself in her right Achilles’ tendon. We were making good time for us (2.5 mph—cruisin!). We took a few short breaks but they never caught up. The spot we had agreed upon was just 4 miles away. We figured, they’re young; they’re grown up; they’ve done this before; they’ll catch up. We made our final push which included a 1000’ climb.
We caught up with Dan and Fancy Pants. They had actually stayed behind us last night. We had thought they had passed us once we turned off the trail. I stopped to get a liter of water and when I started going again, I was inflicted with a ROPA. It was the exact same one Bunny had had, except it was in my left heel. I hobbled the final mile to camp trying not to limp (Marcia doesn’t like it when I limp and makes me stop).
Dan and Fancy Pants set up in the spot next to us. We are on a windy ridge above a nice creek. We were a bit worried about Someday and Wea but didn’t know what to do. We set up camp and ate (actually cooking outside of our tent since there weren’t any bugs a boat). Horchata walked into camp asking for a Rabbit Tracks. It was close enough that we assumed he meant Bunny. She was only slightly irritated because bunnies are cuter than rabbits in her world. In my world, they are the same thing. At any rate, he told us that Someday and Wea were about 4 miles behind eating supper when he last saw them. They were trying to get motivated to climb that hill, but he thought they weren’t finding the motivation they needed.
We were relieved to have word that they were ok. Unfortunately, when they decided to go the extra miles today, that kicked in the Bunny appetite and we are now committed to making it to White Pass by Saturday. Bunny has already forced us to eat our reserves and we still have two days to go. As she was munching down a Snickers this afternoon, she tried to tell me I didn’t have to eat mine if I wasn’t hungry. I know the law of the trail. Any passed up food becomes communal food. If I don’t eat my Snickers then, I’ll only get 1/2 Snickers later. Maybe if she hadn’t made me fish those 3 M&Ms out of the pond in France rather than give me one of hers, I might have skipped the Snickers today. Paybacks are hell, even if they take 2 years.
EFG