Misery. Complete, total & utter misery...
Frostbitten, sodden & chafed to hell, we spent 3 days walking through almost constant torrential rain & hail. It was not fun.
After leaving Oregon at Cascade Locks, filming & being filmed, we crossed the Columbia River on the Bridge of the Gods & by 0830, began the climb into Washington.
The weather was a bit overcast, but dry & cool, great for hiking in. Although there were some steep straight climbs (it seems the trail-makers in WA haven't heard of switchbacks!) we made a good start & got 26 miles in before setting up our tents on a flat unused dirt road high on a ridge as the light left the day. We'd just got them set up as the first fat drops of rain started to drum on the silnylon, so we each climbed in & tried to get some sleep.
Waking to a steady drizzle we got packed, hoping to air & dry out the wet tents later. But it was not to be, as the drizzle increased to a steady downpour throughout the day. Luckily, by late afternoon, it finally let up & we began to dry out as we walked. A great surprise was finding a huge bucket of trail magic containing chocolate & cookies of many descriptions. Suitably choco-fixed, we set off again, looking for a spot to stop got the night. Very shortly after, ( about 200 yards!!) we stumbled across an unmarked National Forest campground complete with toilet, so the evening was looking much better. It didn't last though. We were fortunate enough to have managed to set up & wipe down our tents, plus have dinner before the rain began again, this time in earnest! All night it lashed down & continued like that for another 36 hours.
We spent all of our 3rd day saturated, both of us building a painful collection of chafe points (feet, shoulders, hips, backs...) as well as numb fingers & aching joints. My knee, which was improving, really didn't like being cold & wet at all, swelling & stiffening painfully. It dried up a bit by the end of the day, but then rained noisily all night... Aggh!
Pleasantly, the morning was brightened by some fresh wonderful organic trail magic from the local Zen Buddists, but our choco-fix joy was short lived as the rain came back even harder again... "Gore-Tex" is a fancy & expensive was of staying dry for a while, but it doesn't last!
At the end of the day, shivering & miserable, we set up our still soaking tents again, wrung out wet towels & tried to wipe the tents down on the inside as best as possible, heated up our water for my noodles & Toms potatoes, then squelched inside our meagre shelters to change into our only set of dry clothes, (carefully kept inside double dry-bags) before eating our welcome hot food laying in our sleeping bags. That was a nice feeling, but having to put on wet clothes again the next morning was bloody horrible. Especially shaking the ice off from my socks before putting them on!!
Thank goodness the 5th day was clear, & at lunchtime, we had all our gear spread out over the mountainside drying in the gloriously hot rays of the sun!
Needless to say, we didn't get any video or pictures... Our electronic gear was well packed away in double plastic bags as well... Not only would it not work so well had we exposed it to the downpour, but neither of us had very much inclination to take pictures..! We were too busy slipping & slopping along, hooded heads bowed to the onslaught...
We've had no cell coverage at all, hence this late update, (& the next updates I'm about to write...) So sorry about that to y'all... But the next entries will have pix!
Cheers.
RWK.
Dry at last!
