It was pouring rain while we were at the diner and we all wondered why the heck we were doing this! I kept telling myself that I was going to get some good experience in bad weather and just tried to keep positive. I did have moments where I thought I was out of my freakin' mind though.
By the time we got the group sorted out and permits rearranged, it was 9am. We caravanned to the trailhead and parked the cars. Little did we know we would be seeing these cars again very soon! The leaders had to change up the hike because of the weather so we ended up doing a giant loop that took us straight through the parking lot again! We set up our tents in a meadow just past the parking lot and we could still see the cars as we camped. Not exactly a total wilderness experience!
We had a nice diverse mix of backpackers but Bill was my favorite. He had no rain gear but rather a red poncho and a hand-made rain hat that he fashioned out of a garbage bag, packing tape, and binder clips. The rain poncho kept blowing up over his head so he couldn't see where he was walking. He ended up putting a garbage bag over that and using a piece of twine for a belt to keep things from blowing around. Even though he had no rain gear, he managed to get himself a brand new Jetboil stove and hadn't figured out how to put it together yet. He screwed the pieces on all wrong and couldn't get it to work so I helped him reconfigure and showed him how to ingite it. He got his water boiled and mountain house lasagna cooked and all was well with the world. Excellent sense of humor and super sweet guy. He said it may not look like he knows much about the Jetboil but he can make a good stir fry. LOL.
We practiced map and compass skills again as we walked. I still don't get it.
We had a little creek crossing to get to an old miner's foundation. This area was riddled with old gold mines. I was fascinated thinking about how the old miner's lived and what they must have gone through. We were able to crawl into a mine and shuffle in a bit. I just can't imagine going to a job every day in a dark tunnel being exposed to all the crap and fumes and Lord knows what else is back in there. What a hard life. There was condensation on the ceiling in the mine that was beautiful and crystalline. Completely out of place in the dank, dark, mustiness. We also saw bat poops but no bats, thank goodness.
We made it back through the parking lot, where Nancy was working hard on the leaders to let her get her ugg boots out of the truck but they said No Way! We harrassed the leaders for the rest of the trip about the cars. We ended up camping in a meadow probably not even a half mile from the parking lot. Those ugg boots were literally within arms reach.
Once we got our tents set up we went on another 3ish mile hike to filter water. Nancy and I both had our mini Sawyer Squeeze filters. I used a smart water bottle to fill up in the creek and then screwed the filter to the top of the bottle and then squeezed it into my platypus bladder. Seemed to work very well and didn't take long at all. Even after filtering, the water looked like urine though. That was a little hard to get past. I took a swig and it tasted fine so I just put the urine aspect out of my mind and guzzled it down.
The weather was actually not too horrible. It did pour rain and was pretty windy for the first part of the day but my rain gear kept me totally dry and I was really impressed. I actually had a more pleasant time, hiking-wise, than on the desert backpack. I believe the high was about 47 degrees. Amazing what a difference in temperature can do.
My garmin said we had 8 miles on the day but Michelle's GPS said 6.27 so we were probably somewhere in between. I kept the garmin running while I went into the mine, during my pee breaks, and while setting up my tent so my number is surely inflated.
We got back to camp and got ourselves situated. The leaders had set-up a tarp so we could all sit under and cook our dinners. We all had brought appetizers to share - Nancy's Jalapeno Pie (SO GOOD), dried fruits, salami, cheese, jerky, cookies, crackers, etc. I also shared some honey bourbon :-) I was too full to finish my actual dinner- dehydrated quinoa and black eyed peas with a little bit of smoked salmon. Delicious!
About 7ish I started getting too cold so it was time to hunker down in the tent and warm up. It poured rain on and off all night. My little annoying tent held up so well in the rain that I was totally shocked. No leaks at all! It took me about an hour to warm up, but after I got warm, I was snug as a bug in a rug. The next day, Nancy said she had heard something walking around and breathing so that was a bit freaky. Wonder what it was?
Next morning I stayed in my sleeping bag longer than usual because it was so nice and toasty. I wasn't ready to get cold! Dennis had checked the weather for Pine Valley at about 1am while he was at work and it said 37 degrees, rainy and windy. Finally I trundled off to sit under the tarp and made my oatmeal and coffee. YUM, COFFEE!
We went for a short 2 mile hike but it was pretty taxing. Bushwhacking, crawling over downed trees, mud, fighting through dense underbrush, and another little creek crossing. It was a blast! I felt like I was back in Oregon with the misting rain, lush undergrowth, fresh lilac scented air, and fog enshrouded hills.
We got back to camp and packed up. Someone asked "Is 2 liters of water enough to get back to the cars?" OMG, we laughed so hard at that. We trekked the under half a mile back to the cars and that was it! Back home to a nice hot shower.
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