The Wind, The Rain, & a Peak of Sunshine

The cold wind made packing up and crawling out of my tent sound very unappealing. Knowing rain was coming made me suck it up and get out of my tent.

As I walked along the ridge line this morning, the wind howled so loud. I was so glad that I had my pack and poles to add some extra weight so I didn’t blow over. I couldn’t wait to get off the ridge and into the cover of trees. In the meantime, I just imagined what the view would look like without the blanket of clouds that was covering everything.

After a couple hours, the rain started. It was pretty consistent for a while. As it started raining harder, my pace picked up. I got to a shelter about halfway and stopped for lunch. I knew several people there and most of them had decided to hunker down for the night. It was so tempting to stop. I was cold and wet, but there was a window where the rain stopped so I knew I had to go then or I would never leave.

I threw my pack on and headed back out. The rain held off, and after an hour or so, the sun peeked through the clouds. It was enough that I could take my rain jacket off and let the sun dry my clothes that were soaked from a mixture of sweat and rain. The rest of the hike was nice as the sun warmed everything up a little and a little breeze blew through the trees.

There was a decent size group at the shelter when I arrived. I sent up my tent and then moved over to the table to make dinner. As we were all sitting around talking, Burp, Salamander, Chloe, and Ringer decided they were going to get up and try and catch a sunrise at Clingmans Dome. While I knew it might be too cloudy to catch the sun coming up, the adventure sounded fun. Plus, I always need a reason to actually get up early and start hiking.

I hurried up dinner and cleaning up and made my way to my tent for the night. After sending out an update text to my family on the happenings of the day and my plans for tomorrow, I crawled into bed to try and catch as much sleep as possible before my alarm went off in the morning.