Thursday, July 1, 2010

The First Night

The Pinchot Trail Chronicle, Part 9
Sunday June 27 - Monday June 28, 2010

I did lie awake for a while listening to the night sounds, but fell asleep faster than I thought I might. The pad I was lying on was fairly soft, and the sound of the wind in the trees was helpful in keeping other noises in the background.

A flash of lightning and crack of thunder woke me sometime during the night. Dave would say the next morning that he looked at this watch and it was 1:38am. Instantly wide awake, I unzipped my tent flap, reached out, and closed my rain fly the rest of the way. I lay back and listened to rumbles of thunder and almost immediately it started to rain.

As the rain began to beat steadily on my tent I couldn't help wonder how well it would protect me. The rain kept falling, steadily but not a downpour, and as the minutes passed, I didn't see or feel any signs of trouble. After maybe 15 or 20 minutes, I was convinced that I would stay dry through a light rain like this, but began to have bad thoughts about what might be happening to the rest of our equipment. Down the trail a little ways, we had all of our edibles hanging in a tree. We had cinched the bags closed as tightly as we could, but if the rain got in the openings, or if the bags proved to be more "water resistant" than "water proof", our food supply could end up being a soggy mess. Most of it was in packaging, but still. And my backpack with everything else in it was also hanging in a tree. I had covered it as best I could, but I had visions of water running in through the opening and then pooling in the bottom of the trash bag, soaking all the rest of my stuff.

Did I mention I am a worrier?

After some more useless worrying I accepted the fact that there was nothing I could do about it and drifted back to sleep. I woke briefly another time or two during the night but fell back to sleep pretty quickly each time. All in all I got a fairly good night's sleep, which was better than I expected.

Next...what morning brings.

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