Day 56 More Rain and Thunderstorms

Day 56 

July 15th

16.5 miles

PCT mile 1035

I didn't get as much sleep as I would have liked last night, I woke up early and felt like I should get up and get going instead of going back to bed and sleeping in, so I may have gotten 5 or 6 hours. The restaurant opened at 6 for breakfast, so I stumbled down there looking for coffee. Pilsbury was already down there eating breakfast so I joined her. 

After breakfast, I got rid of my bear vault, yeah!!!! Northern Kennedy Meadows is the first place we can mail it out after we get out of the mandated bear canister areas. That's 2.5 pounds gone. I stocked up on some snacks and goodies at the store and finished packing up. I got a ride back to the trail and was back hiking at 10:30am. All the others were still back at the lodge either taking a zero or heading out later that day, I didn't want to waste anytime. Rumor had it, another thunderstorm was rolling in this afternoon. I wanted to get over the last little climb by Sonora Pass and get as many miles before the rain started again. My plan was hike until the storm came in, set up shelter till it blew over and then continue hiking. Well, I was a little delayed on my plan. I was a mile out from a campsite (10 miles into my day) where I was going to set up shelter and it started downpouring. I didn't want to set up in a downpour and get everything wet, so I continued hiking. Then it started thundering and lightning, luckily I wasn't on a pass and under the cover of forest at this time. I slowed down to let Namaste, a thru-hiker I had just met and passed today, catch up to me. I prefer the company in foul hiking conditions and it turns out so does he, so we stuck together through the afternoon/evening rainstorm. Namaste wanted to hike to about mile 1038 and myself 1036-7ish. So we were hoping we'd hike through the storm, it'd clear up and we'd dry off a bit before having to set up camp. The rain was relentless and the temperature dropped tremendously, despite hiking, neither one of us were able to stay warm. It looked like the sky might be clearing ahead but it got to the point we were just too cold and wet to continue. So we decided to set up camp and seek shelter in our tents. That was about 5:30pm, about an hour later it stopped raining. I was happy to call it an early day and stay snuggled in my tent, everything was wet and would deal with it in the morning. I enjoyed some warm cheesy vegetable rice soup and hot tea and fell asleep early.