Our second night, we stayed at the Hawk Mountain campsites despite the call for rain. We’d had a lazy day of hiking, starting late and wandering to the next shelter.
We’re both fast hikers… but we don’t have much milage yet. Because of that, we were at the camp with plenty of time to set up our tent before it started raining. There were 30 campsites, almost each of them carved into sloping mountainside. We set up at camp 6, and made our first cups of hot chocolate.
The rain started about midnight, and the thunder shortly after that. Tucked away like we were, the wind blew overhead but didn’t really touch our tent. I didn’t sleep especially well with the thunder but once it faded, I was able to sleep a little bit better.
It was still raining in the morning. We waited in the tent for a bit to see if it would break long enough for us to tear down camp, but it didn’t. Instead, we packed what we could in the tent, and then hurriedly tore down the tent, shook off as many water droplets as possible, and then stuffed it in Church Mouse’s pack.
When we were packing for the trip, we both needed some new Frogg Toggs, or rain pants. Any we had around the house were loved and used: ripped, stained, and duct-taped up. I bought us two medium pairs (coat and pants) and without checking the pant sizes, just dropped them in our pack pile. (If I’d bought mediums, you’d think both coat and pants would be medium, right?)
Instead, I pulled out my pair of Frogg Toggs there in camp, unrolled them, and held up a waist three times larger than my own.
They were XXL.
XXL.
“Um, Church Mouse?”
She looked over at me from where she was wrestling her pack cover on and burst out laughing. I’d tried to put them on but they were down at my knees.
It’s to my benefit, I guess, that I hate rain gear. Unless it’s pouring or freezing, I’d much rather be without it than with it. The rain had just lightened to a slight drizzle, so I tucked them right back in my pack. Within a mile, Church Mouse and I both pulled off the rest of our rain gear, both opting to handle the drizzle rather than the heat and annoyance of the rain gear. Our gaiters kept our feet dry, and it was warm enough that’s really all we cared about.
Once you come to terms with the fact that you’re going to be wet, hiking in a drizzle is beautiful. The trails weren’t too muddy yet, the clouds drifted between the mountains, the wetness made everything glisten. Across the mountain range, you could see the fog rising in patches from the valleys and gaps, an ethereal landscape of white, grey, and wet. Some views are impossible without the rain… and acknowledging that makes the rain a bit easier.
Something that made the day easier: We ran into Dale again. We’d met him yesterday at Three Forks and now here he was again at Cooper’s Gap, offering hikers free donuts, protein bars, and Fudge Rounds. If I thought the free treats were amazing yesterday, they were even more so welcome now.
It was also good to hear from someone local about the weather that was supposed to be rolling in. There was a storm front rolling in from Alabama that had people worried, but the thunderstorms scheduled to come in weren’t predicted to be worse than what a shelter could handle. We debated pulling off and going to a hostel, but after hearing that, we decided to push to Gooch Mountain Shelter and stay there instead of paying for a bunk.
To those of you who have never stayed in a shelter before, I’m not sure how to describe it, but I’ll try my best.
You’re walking in the rain. Your feet are getting tired. Your muscles ache. Suddenly, in the distance, you hear human voices. As the shelter, a large, three-sided wooden structure, comes into view, someone cheers. You’re not sure if they’re cheering for you or not, but it’s the welcome push you need to walk the last few steps.
You walk up to the shelter and look over the faces crowded inside. You hardly know anyone.
“Is there room for two more?” You ask the strangers in the top bunk. People take stock of the floor space (there are no beds, only wooden floor where everyone lays out their mats). “Yeah, we can squeeze you in,” a guy calls. You’ll later learn his name is Chris; right now, you’re just happy for a spot.
Space is made on the floor. You throw your mat between a guy you’ve never met and a lady who’s name you don’t know. Your mats are only a couple of inches apart, if that. They smile at you. You smile back. You clamber down the ladder to the picnic table and make dinner. Later in the evening, you’ll crawl back up there and fall asleep.
It’s sketchy the first time you do it. It’s sketchier the first time you do it as the only woman. It was comforting the first time I did it solo, since that was the first time I’d seen people in two days. After time you come to realize: the people spreading out their mats next to you are out here for the same reason you are, to breathe in the mountain air, snore under the stars, and do it all again tomorrow.
Turns out, once again, the people we’re sharing the top level with are awesome. Chris is hiking the trail after wanting to do it for five years. Pink (“like the color”) is next to him. He has a harmonica and bursts out randomly into song or poetry. The woman next to Sami teaches Tae Kwon Do. One of the guys bunking downstairs hands out gummy worms and Snickers.
It’s a good night of sleep, and the best part about hearing the rain tapping against the tin roof is knowing we don’t have to pack up an extra soggy tent in the morning.
We skipped out the thunderstorms this afternoon (though the morning had plenty of beautiful foggy weather, less beautiful wind gusts, and cold rain) to go to Hidden Pond Hostel. We can restock, send a couple things home, and we already found some goodies in the hiker box (a bigger Sawyer Squeeze bag and some ramen noodles). We’re also recharging our phones and battery bank, so we don’t have to do that at Neel Gap/Mountain Crossing, the first outfitter on the trail.
Originally we had plans to restock there, but we overpacked food enough we’re just going to maybe add a couple snacks but not do a full restock until we go to town later in the week.
And, I truly hope they have a smaller pair of rain pants.
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