Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Last week started with rain, buckets and downpours of drenching rain. We took a “zero day” and stayed warm and dry in a hiker hostel near town.

I figured and re-figured our itinerary. Nope, skipping ahead much further south still put us in rain. Nope, there was no place to avoid occasional nights of tenting in the rain. (We hike only 3-7 miles per day. We could potentially push ourselves to 10 miles for a dry place to sleep. ..but some shelters are 13 miles apart.  Sigh…)

Finally, I arranged a shuttle for the next morning to drop us not far from the first shelter in Shenandoah National Park. This limited how wet we would get. The following day was supposed to be mist and drizzle which felt manageable for hiking. Throughout that day, more and more hikers piled in to the shelter, all wet and all tired of the rain.

And then…we heard that far from going away, the rain was going to get worse. The weather forecast was for storms followed by a  nor’easter followed by a HURRICANE! A week of rain and more rain. That was it! A poor night’s sleep just made me more determined…I found a hiker whose phone had coverage and made a few calls to arrange evacuation for daughter and myself as well as two hiker friends.

We spent a lovely weekend with my sister and her family, off the trail in a warm, dry house, watching the rain through windows, and eating yummy food. We all look forward to getting back to the woods once the rain has gone away. But for now I think we might have found hiker heaven. ..

Andowen (daughter) found toys to play with…

Story Seeker (me) found books to read…

Blaze (friend) found a comfy recliner…

 

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