Major brain-fart. I’ve been misinterpreting Patches saying “10 before 10.” I thought he meant you should always start hiking no later than 10 minutes before 10. Bunny explained where I was wrong when I said “we missed it today.” It was 10:20 when we started hiking (after our second breakfast at the General Store). All this time I thought Patches was telling me that Mizman was doing it right because he rarely starts by 10. Bunny explained that Patches means to hike 10 miles before 10a. That’s just wrong on so many levels. I’ll stick to less than 5 by 5 and be happy.
We were very surprised, and pleased, to wake to sunshine. The weather forecast called for two crappy days in a row followed by a decent day on Friday with another bad day on Saturday. Yesterday was misty most of the day, but really good hiking weather. Today, it started clouding up shortly after we started hiking. We could see the rain ahead of us so we knew we’d get some soon enough. We were right. It started misting by 11 and kept doing it almost all day.
Even with the light rain, today proved to be one of our favorite days on the trail. This is because we finally climbed out of desert soils into a mixed forest with actual dirt on the ground. We were walking through oaks mixed in with the Ponderosas. We even hit a couple mile stretch of blooming dogwoods. Maybe we’re finally going to get some spring weather.
A little before 1, we stopped for a light snack and a drink by a bridge crossing Rock Creek. If we hadn’t just left Burney Falls, we would have been pretty impressed with the narrow Gorge this creek was cutting into the rock. Around 3 we stopped again for a more substantial snack. We were trying to wait for it to stop raining but could tell by then it wasn’t going to. Bunny said she had about another 5 miles left in her hips, but she hoped it would at least stop raining long enough for us to set up camp.
The trail was all uphill today. It looks like we’re going to climb up to a ridge around 5000’ and then stay up there for the next 40 miles bouncing between 4700’ and 6200’. I became very concerned when we encountered snow at 4800’ climbing up to the ridge. The campsite we were aiming for today requires us to go over 5100’ and then drop back down to 4700’. Once we started dropping, we encountered larger and larger patches of snow. Nothing too bad, but this concerns us because we have to get over 7000’ a couple of times before we make it into Oregon.
Bunny got her wish. It stopped raining when we made it to the creek before our camp. We grabbed enough water for tonight and the morning before knocking out the final 0.1 miles. We found the spot right off the trail and dropped our packs. We had kept our coats on after our second snack because the temperature was dropping as we climbed. Now, we were both cold and ready to get in the tent.
No sooner did we get the tent set up and get all of our stuff inside before it started raining again. Normally, Bunny goes in first to inflate the pads while I unpack outside but it was pretty dark at only 5:15 so we both jumped in. While we were getting our beds ready and changing out of our wet clothes, the sound of the rain beating on the tent turned more solid. The rain had turned to a mixture of sleet and hail.
Boys and girls, one thing you really shouldn’t do in bear country is cook and eat in your tent. We’ve been doing it all along on this trail and we want to stop, but the weather won’t cooperate. I was preparing breakfast and supper (I’m an efficient multitasker) when I looked out of the vestibule because everything was looking brighter. It had turned to an all out snow. We are having a Cheryl Strayed evening with the snow coming down. Maybe we’ll get to see a fox in the morning when we wake up.
As of the writing of this entry, what we thought was going to be a light dusting has turned into a full snow. It’s been snowing for over 2 hours. Everything is white outside now. We’re hoping tomorrow warms up enough that we can proceed forward as the (so far) 2” of fresh snow melts. We will have some decisions to make if it continues to snow all night. I’ve checked for possible exit routes from the mountains as well as considering the option of turning back. We’re too deep in the woods to see any of the mountains around us to see how much snow they have gotten. Burney Mountain was our barometer up until now.
If you’re reading this online, everything turned out just fine. If someone is reading this on my iPad mini, know that I told my wife I wanted to spend a few more days at Burney Mountain Guest Ranch where we had beds, WiFi, flushing toilets, and a Great Pyrenees to keep us warm. I’m sure that if this is the latter case, please check my wife’s hand. No doubt, you will find the middle finger raised and frozen in position. She always refuses to admit it when I am right.
EFG