Night 2: Survive and Advance

At dusk I hear echos of howling wolves from varying distances. They don’t sound too close. But they also sound close enough that I wish I had a gun in my tent.

(Looking this up in hindsight, wolves do in fact live in Itasca State Park.)

There’s not a cloud in sight, so my biggest concern at the moment is wondering if my hiking stick I use as a tent pole could fend off a hungry wolf or two.

I hang my food bag from a tree and doze off.

Hours later I wake up to an unfamiliar flash. A pale white flicker illuminates my tent.

I wonder if I’m dreaming.

The first flash is followed by another.

“What the heck?”

It has been over a year since I’ve seen a thunderstorm and in my half awakened state it took me about 30 seconds to realize that was a possibility.

I crawl out of my tent to see clouds barreling towards me. They’re not close enough yet for me to hear any thunder. But I get the feeling they will be here soon.

With no context for how high the River will rise in a storm I hurry down to my kayak to pull it even further out off the shoreline.

It’s 2AM. Thunder is shortly followed by a light drizzle.

Thank God I already had my tarp up. It’s pretty much a necessity even on clear nights to fight the morning dew.

The rain picks up, then the wind picks up.

I’d give my original tarp set up a D grade. It protected me from a drizzle. But with the wind I needed to get out into the rain and reinforce the tarp guylines. After a few iterations in and out of the tent, I’d say I upgraded my set up to a C. I say C because I was able to to keep my blanket dry the whole time, but it was far from ideal.

By around 4 AM the rain had died down to a trickle.

Around 6 AM I awake again. There’s no rain but the clouds in the distance seem ominous. I weigh the benefits of sleeping in longer and risking a second blanket soaking downpour (my biggest fear).

—

I learned to fear wet blankets at the very end of the PCT. The rain in Oregon and Washington was continuous for days at a time. The last week or so of the PCT was also covered in two feet of snow.

Once your sleeping bag is wet it’s very difficult to get it dry again in a wet environment. One night on the PCT towards the end I literally slept on the trail under a tree and started a fire under the cover of a particularly wide pine tree. I ended up burning part of my sleeping bag in my attempt to dry it out.

—

I decided to get moving with dry weather. I was on the River by 7 AM.

Survive and advance.