WESTERN CENTENNIAL MOUNTAINS
It was a rough night of rumbling on the outside (thunder and rain) and on the inside (intestinal discomfort). I guess I’m not completely over the bug. I had 6 trips out in the rain to relieve myself
I slept in to make up for lost sleep. A hiker named The Reverend came by to fill up water as I will still in my tent.
When I finally hit the trail, hail and rain hit me. It kept going and intensifying with every step. By 12:00 noon I was very soaked and very cold, concerned that further steps would take me into higher elevation, colder temperatures, more precipitation, and hypothermia. I decided to throw up my tent as fast as I could and get warm.
My fingers were very cold and not working well. It was like Joe in “Touching the Void” trying to tie a knot with frozen fingers while dangling on the end of a rope on a frozen mountain. I finally got it assembled in the midst of the storm, which meant much of the inside of the tent was wet. I took off my soaked clothes, put on dry ones, threw on my down jacket, put my feet in plastic bags, and crawled into my 20deg sleeping bag. My toes and fingers took a very long time to thaw, and I shivered a lot.
Meanwhile, outside it got worse. The storm turned to freezing rain, then snow. It snowed for a long time, and I knew I was going to be snowbound until morning. Through the night I saw temperatures go from 40 to 35, then at dawn down to 30.
A brutal day and night on the CDT