August 3rd - above the clouds and under the sea

August 3rd 2015

I'm not quite sure where to start and unfortunately I'm not in the best of circumstances at the moment...

Last night Chimichanga left his hiking pole in the lake with a fishing line,  baited with dead cricket from my tent. Like magic there was a trout on it this morning. It was pretty cool and he ended up eating it for lunch.

Pretty early on we reached the cirque de towers and enjoyed some pretty epic views and I don't use the word epic lightly.  There were a couple tough climbs but we (myself, Chimichanga, and Chilli) made it up quickly to get to the epic views. After a few miles in heaven we worked our way back down to the valleys and hiked on easy street. It lightly rained all afternoon and kept the temperature rather cool. At one point we met a family that informed 3 starving hikers that they had too much food.  Naturally, we made off with extra dinners, bags of jerky, salami and a freaking block of Tillamook cheese!!!! We shared a couple things and Chimichanga and Chilli kept the rest since I'm going into town tomorrow.

The rest of the afternoon was plagued with thunderstorms and rain.  Around 8 we found a good/great campsite and settled down. There was a brief break in the rain and I heated some water for dinner and got my tent in order.  Heck I even watched part of a movie while I ate dinner.  It was around that time I noticed the water pooling up around my tent. Slowly, but surely, I was sinking.  The first hint was the water splashing all over my bug netting on the inside,  how was it getting there...  Realizing that the cuben fiber on my floor was failing I started packing everything up.  Shortly after that, I realized I would have to move my tent to avoid floating away. It was an adventure but I think I'm safe now. I'm glad I did it because it's still pouring down rain outside as I write this 2 hours later.  Everything is wet but there isn't too much I can do about that. I also noticed a very fresh badger hole a few feet away and I think I can hear him moving dirt and grunting over the pounding of rain.

Here's to a great night of sleep,  Semi dry sleep.