I woke up at 5ish and it wasn’t raining. There was condensation on the ceiling, but mostly everything was dry. With mopping up the ceiling and general slow moving, I didn’t start climbing back up to the trail until 7:20.
The first hiking to be done was climbing up the canyon under Carson Peak. Near the beginning, I scared an elk cow in the trail that immediately ran down to the bottom of the canyon and started running up the other side. As I climbed, I kept looking over and she was always there, walking up at about the same height.
It was a brutally cold wind to be walking in, especially when there was so little sun to be had. Once I came over the pass at the back of the canyon and started descending, I wanted a place out of the wind for a break. There were some tall, thin rock walls above the trail and I thought I might be protected behind one. It was a little better, but the wind would come from the other direction every now and then also, so eventually I just put on my jacket.
After a long, long descent, I reached a heavily trafficked and steep OHV road. As I slowly climbed it, I had to stop on several occasions on the side of the road to nod to trains of multi-seater ATVs. To be honest, despite the hours long climb up this road, it was probably the nicest part of the day.
The CDT left the road just before it reached its steepest climb to do some switchbacks next to it. At this moment, it started to sprinkle a little bit, and a raincoated CT sobo passed me going down. I didn’t bother to stop to get out my rain gear, and by the time I reached the top of the hill (the official high point of the CT), the rain was already starting to subside. On the backside of that hill, the wind was greatly attenuated, so I fashioned a chair from the rock pile and made lunch.
By the time I descended that hill and started climbing the next, the biggest, windiest raincloud of all had taken over the sky. It started with some powerfully blown wintry mix, and I had to stop and drop into a nearby bowl to put on my Packa. It subsided into rain, and then continued just soaking for the next two hours. My socks and shoes were soaked through. The Packa sleeve wasn’t drawn tight enough on my right arm, so my jacket sleeve had soaked up a cup of water at the elbow. My phone battery died halfway through, so I didn’t have a podcast to distract me from the wet cold or the ability to get pictures of what the rain was doing to the colors of the bluffs.
The bluffs I was crossing on a thin mud track were mostly grass and wildflowers, sloping slightly down to the right from steep cliffs on the left. Birds and marmots were out, seemingly indifferent to the rain. It was pretty easy walking, and I had no desire or reason to stop. When it’s raining, you just want to keep going and prevent anything from getting wetter.
It started letting up around 4 as I came onto a mesa that just looked like the perfect camping terrain: flat with many wide empty spaces between bushes and trees. I wished it were later so I could have such a nice campsite. But instead, the trail descended through thicker trees, getting so muddy slick that it was a challenge not to fall when my feet started sliding out from under me, and not just on slopes.
At the bottom of the hill, I bothered someone in a tent about water, which he said was under a nearby bridge. I assume he just went ahead and made camp rather than walk in the rain, which was certainly a tempting approach.
I stopped on the bridge to filter some water, recharge my phone, and enjoy some direct sunlight for the first time in hours. When I packed up, I decided to pack up my Packa too. Rather than be ready to walk in the rain the next time it started, I would just immediately stop to make camp at the first sign.
The best laid plans… a few miles later, right about 7pm, the rain came back and built up in intensity very quickly. I looked to make camp, but it was impossible. There were rocks sticking up in every square foot. So I was forced to stop and put my Packa back on and keep walking. After a few hours of walking with no rain, my shoes had nearly dried, but they were very quickly soaked again. And the rocks sticking up did not make the walking easy.
It took maybe another half mile to reach the middle of the mesa where the rocks didn’t stick up as much. I wandered off the trail seeking some mild wind protection amongst the bushes. The rain got harder.
I set up my tent as fast as I could, but everything got soaked while I was trying. By the time I got inside with my pack, there were puddles on the tent floor. So I took off the Packa, and my shoes and socks, and started by toweling down the inside as much as possible. Then I set up for sleep and changed into dry backup clothes before making supper.
As the sun went down, the temperature dropped, with the forecast saying it would get down to 39 degrees. It was hard to stay warm even with my winter sleeping bag and my only slightly damp jacket on. I was looking forward to an opportunity to get to town and turn a heater up way too high for a few hours.
Trail miles: 18.2
Distance to Lake City: 4.4 miles
