We were in the tent by 6:45p to get out of the rain. We didn’t even pee after we ate waiting for a break in the rain. It never came. It rained all night long. When the taste of my urine backed up to my mouth, I couldn’t take it any more. I heard a short break in the rain; this was my chance. If I ran fast enough, I could pee on Bear and Sassy’s Big Agnes before they detected the break and headed out. Success!
When I had to go a second time, it was already 7:15a. Since it was light out and still raining, I stayed close to home for relief. I just stayed up and started making breakfast. I just wanted the hot coffee in my snippy cup to keep me warm until everyone else was up. I, in no way, want to be the early riser. With the rain coming down, I was willing to lay in bed and wait it out.
Sassy came down around 8 and told us they had seen the weather report for the day and the rain was supposed to stop between noon and one and then be a sunshiney, warm day. We have Verizon and couldn’t get a signal. Dancing Dog has Verizon and couldn’t get a signal. Bear and Sassy have Verizon…I was convinced she was lying to give us all hope and get us going.
Dancing Dog brought her coffee and stove over to our tent to borrow a lighter (hers got wet and wouldn’t strike). She set the stove down and turned the valve on but couldn’t get the stove to light. “I think you need to attach the fuel to the stove to get it to work.” She’s obviously not a morning person. I heated her coffee for her.
She then went back to her tent, got the fuel, and cooked supper for breakfast. We were actually worried that she might not have eaten supper last night because of the rain. She has the tightest tent of all of us and we still haven’t figured out how to set it up right. As a result, not only did she not have enough vestibule room to cook, but water had managed to get in and soak everything she has with her. The water kept dripping on her sleeping pad causing her to curl up into a smaller and smaller ball until she had no place left to go. It was wet and cold with even her sleeping quilt soaked. Luckily, she had some hand warmers which she activated and dropped in her bra to keep warm.
So far, Dancing Dog has lost her coffee cup, broken her glasses, had an aversion to backpacking food which has given her diarrhea, had her water bladder leak all over her back, gotten all of her gear soaked by rain, and has never been this dirty in her life (day 3…long distance hiking requires a certain flexibility with personal hygiene). Through all of these adversities, she’s still happy to be out here. Nothing fazes her. Her husband says her stubbornness is her best quality—when she sets her mind to something, nothing will stop her.
By the time we squeezed as much water off of our gear as possible and got packed up, it was 10:16. With all the rain and bad luck, we were only a minute later leaving camp. It wasn’t actually raining, but we were walking in a cloud and fog. Noon came, but no sun. We decided to take a snack break and get out of the wind.
Bunny’s mom has a cat. It’s a feral cat that only responds to her. If we’re all sitting in the living room, the cat may come out. If anyone acknowledges the cat, it will turn and run back under the bed to not be seen again for quite sometime. If everyone ignores the cat, it will eventually join the crowd.
The sun has been trying to break through the clouds for the last day, but every time it starts to brighten up, someone will say “here comes the sun” and it disappears. After the break, actual sunshine struck the ground. Bear yelled “Tadaa” and the sun disappeared. I warned everyone to not mention or say anything if the sun popped back out again. I, single-handedly saved the day. The sun tentatively popped out again, and everyone ignored it. Pretty soon we had full sunshine and a beautiful day.
After grabbing a little bit of water, we found a big enough campsite that we could lay out all of our wet gear to dry. All of our tents, ground clothes, wet clothes, bags, etc. got spread out while we took another, extended snack break. It cooled off a bit, but with the sun and slight breeze we managed to get stuff dry enough that we won’t get hypothermic tonight.
The altitude is having some weird effects on my system. I find myself hiccuping quite a bit, but the hiccups sound like belches. I’ve also been having some sort of allergic reaction which causes me to sneeze every couple of minutes, but the sneezes sound like farts. I’ve explained this adverse reaction to everyone so now if any fart sound comes from me, everyone says “Geshundtheit.” If I could pull this off in a work environment, I’ll be golden.
We couldn’t decide how far we wanted to go today. Bear and I were pushing for 16 miles. Bunny and Dancing Dog were fine with 12. Sassy had no opinion knowing that Bear would make the plans and have his usual 3-4 contingencies. Right now, we are operating on “PCT COVID-19 alternate ¥ 3a” which called for us to go 16. We discussed this after our extended drying break and thought 16 might be out of the question. When we got to Lolo Pass, it was a done deal.
On the AT, there are shelters every 6-10 miles. Each shelter has a reliable water source, a picnic table, and some sort of pit latrine. None of this exists on the PCT. I can count the number of trailside privies we ran across last year on one hand. While hiking with Charcoal B and Struggles in Washington last year, we actually formed a line with 3 other hikers to use a box with a lid that had to be held open with a stick. The first thing I noticed when we got to Lolo Pass was a family size, beige Jonny on the Spot.
The 3 women were there first and they hadn’t even bothered to check it out. They assumed it was probably locked. I ran over to it and tried the door. Nirvana! Not only was it unlocked, it was clean and had toilet paper. I said I was 100% ok with staying here tonight. We started looking for a camping spot and I said I didn’t want to stray too far from the privy. Life only got better. We found a spot large enough for all of our tents AND there was a picnic table. We only scored this trifecta 3 times last year.
We started the day wet and miserable hating Oregon. Then the sun came out and we got to dry all of our gear. Then, as we were walking, we managed to get a full frontal view of Mt Hood when we had forgotten where we were even headed. Top it all off with flat spots for our tents, a picnic table, and a privy! We’ve won the lottery. And none of us have even had to put up with a single tweet to discover America doesn’t have to be made great again; it already is.
EFG