Coltrane After the Rain

Thursday, May 4, 2023

I woke up at 7am to 36 degrees and rain. Not ideal hiking weather. Hell, this was Washington weather. I wasn’t supposed to see this until the end of my hike!

But there was no getting around it, so I waited for a short break in the rain, bailed out of my tent, and put together my wet, muddy pack as quickly as possible. Embrace the suck, as the saying goes.

I wore every piece of rain gear I had. Jacket, kilt, rain mitts, and umbrella. Considering, I stayed relatively dry. Hey, I didn’t carry it all this way for nothing!

The rain finally started to clear around 1pm and my playlist shuffled to one of my favorite Coltrane songs, “After the Rain”. How appropriate.

Needless to say, I didn’t take a ton of pics today. But here’s a few.

I hiked to mile 145 to another trail angel water cache. This was Mary’s and she had a water barrel, a little free library, and some cutouts of John Muir, Thoreau, and Whitman along with quotes. Cool little spot that I decided to camp at around 4:30.

Camping this early allowed me to use my stove, which I’ve been neglecting, and cook up an amazingly good freeze dried meal from Peak. This is the most expensive of the hiker freeze dried meals, but also the best!

Two other gents strolled into camp about an hour later and we got along great. They are John and Clay, slightly older than me, and well experienced hikers. John is going for the full trail, while Clay is just doing sections. More on them in the next post. We got to bed early and prepared for a 7am leave time for the 6.4 miles to Paradise Valley Cafe the next morning.