So whaddaya do on a holiday weekend when the family's out of town visiting other family, and you're all alone? Well of course! You take a nice, relaxing backpacking trip to the mountains, right? That was the plan, anyway.
Easy peasy - a one-nighter to one of my favorite spots in the Georgia Blue Ridge mountains. No problemo. The sweet five mile stroll from the trailhead went great. Set up the tent, enjoyed a nice high-carb pasta dinner courtesy of my JetBoil, Snickers (two, actually) for dessert, slung my food bag, then off to bed to enjoy the peaceful, sleepy night-sounds of the gentle forest. Right.
About 2:00 a.m. the storms came - torrential downpours, enough lightning to read by, and sonic-boom thunder that rattled my teeth. Two hours of this crap. Fortunately, I had camped on relatively high ground, but not too high and not under a tree. The squishiness under my tent floor told me I was in for a messy morning, though. Back to sleep about 4:00.
More storms at 5:00, lasting about an hour this time. When things cleared around 6:00 I said, "screw it" and started to strike camp and head back to the trailhead. Hmmmmm - didn't I sling that food bag right over there? No food bag - just my line still slung over the limb, clearly chewed through. By this point I could have cared less if it was a really smart bear or an annoying racoon - I was hungry! Now, Backpacker's Gourmet scrambled eggs are really pretty crappy - we can probably all agree on that - but it beats nothing for breakfast, especially on a cool, soggy morning with little sleep in my rearview mirror. No coffee, no power bars, no Snickers, no jerky, no Gorp, no peanut M&Ms, no nothing - it was all in the bag. And no sign of the bag anywhere around my camp. Looking at the line placement, it was obvious I had just been going through the motions the night before - way too close to the tree trunk. My grandmother could probably have gotten it down.
The soggy mess that was my camp went not-too-gently into my pack, and off I went. Only five miles back to the trailhead - less than 2 hours, easy. Then a hot breakfast somewhere along the route home! But Momma Nature wasn't done with me just yet - did I mention that it started raining again? Heavy? Footing became slippery and I had to take it slow with 25 pounds on my back (at least that would have been the weight if the damn food was still there). It took me about two hours to cover the 3 miles to the creek crossing - slipping, sliding, and re-adjusting soppy wet stuff as I went. Only 6 weeks left till my date with Whitney, so taking no chances on getting hurt.
It wasn't a creek anymore. It was a freakin' storm drain. The foot-deep, babbling brook I had crossed the previous day was a frothing, whitewater amusement park ride. At least 3 feet deep, 20 wide, and moving like it was seriously late for the lottery deadline. I briefly thought about trying it. I had barely loosened my pack straps when a heavy branch about - oh, my size - shot from upstream and disappeared really quickly downstream. Scratch that idea. And a brief survey of the creek bank up and down from the trail crossing told me I was unlikely to find anything better nearby.
So I took my soggy self to the nearest really big-canopied tree I could find and decided to wait it out. The good thing about low mountains is that run-off subsides pretty quickly when the rain stops. I wouldn't have to wait that long. I had settled down reasonably comfortably - not a lot of rain was getting to me - when the thunder started up again. Really close. A string of vibrantly colorful, creative, and anatomically impossible expletives, and I was out in the downpour once more - sans my trekking poles and tent poles. For about 45 minutes I squatted as best I could on my pack while the early Memorial Day fireworks show went on all around me. I was soaked, cold, miserable, tired, and pretty damn hungry - but at least I had water. Lots of water. I swear, a chipmunk that was nearby most of the time was laughing his furry little ass off at my predicament. I hate chipmunks, by the way.
Long story short, the rain finally quit about an hour later, the creek became crossable about two hours after that, and I managed to drag my sorry, pathetic, sopping-wet self to my truck about 5:00 p.m. I had left camp about 8:00 and it took 9 hours to cover the 5 miles to the trailhead. Oh yeah - the sun was out and it looked like it was just a beautiful day to go for a hike. Of course.
I gorged on fast food the first chance I got, and pulled into my driveway about 8:00 last night. My garage is still mostly a tenement of drying gear hanging everywhere, and somewhere along the way I managed to lose my water filter and headlamp. I am soooooo glad my wife isn't witnessing this. She called a little while ago from Minnesota and asked what I had been up to the last couple of days. "Did you go hiking?" she asked. "Uh . . . uh . . . uh . . ."
