48 — Rain in Kings Canyon

Mile 793.5 — 799.7 (6.2 miles)

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Rose: short lived sunshine Thorn: rain, sleet, thunder, getting half a day behind schedule Bud: knowledge of how the storm worked out today, so will be better prepared for tomorrow’s pass Pinchot Pass

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6am. It has already started raining. Very lightly but raining nonetheless. I should probably get out of bed so i can trudge the 13 miles to Pinchot Pass before it gets too stormy. I’m just so tired. Another half hour of sleep maybe.

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7:30am. There’s droplets on my tent now. It is consistently raining. I should have packed up when the tent was still relatively dry. The rain is making me lazy and tired. I will just listen to more of my audiobook.

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What a miserable day it turned into. Mid morning I was disgusted with my laziness, so I packed up under my tarp, still raining and left to retrieve my bear canister and extra food from the bear locker.

It was not raining. It was snowing. Very very wet slushy snow. A recipe for utter wetness and hypothermia.

At the bear canister, I encountered three weekend hikers cowering under the relative dryness of a rock overhang. I joined them at their invitation, eager to eat something. Maybe my sluggishness in the morning was from hypoglycemia; I had barely eaten the night before.

I chatted with the hikers. They offered liquor (Honey Jack) and weed, both welcome distractions from the sleet just outside the cave. They gave me extra food for the delay in my travels. They told me that there wasn’t much tree cover descending down the canyon. I determined to wait out the storm. Better to keep dry what gear that I could. Another PCTer (OverTheHill) and I made a pact to make a break for it if the storm broke. The good news was that there was no wind and the falling sleet seemed consistent and not frantic.

I crawled back under my tarp and reset up camp. I tightened the guylines and dug drainage trenches under the drip lines to divert the water away from the interior. I dug little holes on the corners where puddles threatened to overwhelm the small channels. Under my tarp, I have no inner. I put my tent inner in that bounce box stuck in Acton. I won’t get it for another week when I reach Mammoth Lakes. Right now, it’s just a sheet of plastic weighted down by rocks on the corners and several tears. I could get flooded.

I fluffed up my sleeping quilt, turned on my audiobook, played solitaire, and dozed.

At 3:30, I woke up to sunlight on my tarp. None too soon too. The drip line channels were getting full; rain and mud had started to bounce off the channels and onto the plastic tarp floor. My critical gear had only just started getting dirty as I had cringed away from the intruding dirt.

We (about 8 of us) emerged from our shelters to dry what we could in the sun. We spent an hour drying and organizing before setting off to try and make some progress along trail. Getting closer to Pinchot for tomorrow morning could only help.

The trail wound passed several lakes, choice swimming holes, creek crossings, and lots of mosquitos. It would probably have been some trying miles in a high water year and some lazy lounging late summer.

It was only two hours before the clouds started closing again. 7:30pm I made it to the bottom of the canyon when thunder grumbled. I spied a dozen tents under the trees. I set up my tarp with thunder overhead and rain starting. I dug my channels again. I gobbled down food to maintain warmth and in a vain attempt to get all my food to fit in the bear cannister (it doesnt).

Again, bed, audiobook, and solitaire.

The rain stopped after night fell. These sites are next to the creek, so now my tarp has rain droplets on the outside and condensation on the inside. Oh what fun.