PCT day 55 – Storms approaching
We got breakfast at VVR which was better than dinner! Although I got named poof poof on my order!
VVR is expensive but it is in the middle of nowhere so you have to expect the prices to be a little higher! We got the ferry Back across the lake with Catwater - not exactly the type of ferry I was expecting! The boat had a leak and we were being bailed out with a tin can! I'm not too keen on boats.
It was around a 40 minute journey across the lake. Cool Breeze forgot his phone so had to wait at the lake for the ferry man to go and come back again. He said he would meet us at the top of the pass. Catwater, Growler and I set out and walked across the rest of the lake (where there should have been around 15ft of water) and back to the trail.
Then we started on the 6 miles and 2200ft of up to the pass. It was a struggle. There was a steep staircase type section and I was going so slowly through that. Costco passed me and was not happy. - Who built this trail?! Was it built by Giants?! This is ridiculous! - he also wasn't happy that with the impending storms he was carrying a giant lightening conductor on his back...
Apart from the steep giant steps section, the walk to the pass was a fairly easy one. No snow and the incline was gradual. Eventually I got to the top of the pass - Growler and Catwater were already there huddled by a rock.
We waited for Cool Breeze for an hour but he didn't show up. Lots of other people did though, and no one had seen him. We made the decision to start going down, through a bit of snow, as the weather wasn't looking good - we could see the lightening in the distance.
There were some small patches of snow on the way down but they weren't any kind of match for us. Then we had a huge up switchback section which was quite gruelling. At the top I saw Growler (still no sign of Cool Breeze), we still had 5 more miles to go and it was 5:30 and it was getting really cold.
Catwater said she was reassessing her plan and stopping in three quarters of a mile at the lake. We said we would carry on. Then it began to snow, and then rain. It was so so cold. It turned into a complete white out and I struggled to see where the trail went. I ran to the lake and sheltered under a tree which started speaking to me - there was someone in there sheltering from the storm! He was waiting for his friend who has the shelter. Growler came round the corner, then I saw a flash of orange on the other side of the lake - it was Cool Breeze - he had finally caught up with us after starting 2 hours later. Unfortunately he was caught in all the storms and had been rained on most of the day which meant he was freezing and exhausted from walking so fast to catch up with us.
I tried to take pictures but everything was just too wet to work.
There were no arguments when we said we should set up camp there, we had still managed 18 miles. The weather was terrible, we were soaked, we were freezing. We set up the tents in the rain - Catwater had just managed to get set up before us and showed us a great spot in the trees. It rained heavily while we were in our tents trying to eat dinner and get dry, when it stopped the temperature dropped about 10 degrees and became 'see your breath' freezing!
We tried to sleep to the chorus of the one hundred thousand frogs in the lake.
Tomorrow we hit 900 miles!...