Date: 2013-07-02
From: Bobblets Gap Shelter

To: Zero again due to thunderstorms
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Tuesday, July 2ndZero day @ Bobblets Gap Shelter @ 742.0   0.0 milesI awoke at about 7:30 AM and took care of my morning business. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, the other hiker in the tent up the hill was silent, and no noise from the shelter told me I was probably the only one up, unless some early birds left. I got back in my tent and went back to sleep. Maybe an hour later as I had just dozed off good, I heard the pitter patter of raindrops on my tent cover. Why didn't I pack up while I had the chance? Maybe that's because there were no real signs of rain. No thunder, no sprinkles, though the forecast has been rain since I can last remember. It rained a while, stopped, rained some more, and went on like that for a while. Then the rain became heavy. It didn't look good at all. Everyone else had gone by the time I decided I could walk to the shelter, except for Lightweight. He hung around for a couple more hours before finally braving the onslaught. Before he left I asked Lightweight if he'd seen any more of our slithery friend from yesterday, referencing the four foot Black snake we saw crawling up the shelter wall. He said that while everyone was eating breakfast at the picnic table this morning, the snake fell off the roof onto the table scaring the begeebus out of everyone. Wish I'd been there to see that one. When the rain finally slowed to a trickle for a moment, I carried all of my gear up to the shelter so I could pack up out of the rain in case it started up again. Thistle started doing the same a little later, but it started pouring again before she could get her tent down. She decided to leave the tent and get it once things calmed down again, only it didn't. When we did finally get a pause in the weather I helped her get her tent so we could hurry before the rain started again. When we got to the tent it had collapsed and was full of water. I pulled it up and it was covered with mud. I decided the only way to get the tent right was to wash the mud off and hang it in the shelter to dry. I took it to the creek and washed the caked mud off, then spread it over the picnic table and poured several buckets of water over it rinsing off as much mud as possible, and hung it in the shelter.There was no way she would be able to use that tent tonight. If we made it to the next shelter, with the rain coming down it could possibly be full of hikers trying to escape it. If that happened she would have nowhere to sleep. Taking all this into consideration, and the fact that it was absolutely pouring, we decided to forego the hike and hunker down. I wanted to at least get out of this mosquito infested area, but it wasn't worth risking having no place to sleep when we had first dibs on this shelter. We turned on Mister Speaker, a speaker I bought in one of the towns we went through, and listened to music. Thistle read while I worked off all my nervous energy. I can't seem to sit still for a full minute. After a while the rain finally subsided, so I built a fire. I spent time searching for wood and tore up a stump to a downed tree. I cut my toenails that were split from who knows what. I put googly eyes I bought on a stump and took pictures. I put googly eyes on me too. I fiddled with my equipment and rebagged items, you get the picture... just keeping busy. A few hours after our reprieve the rain started again. My fire was hot, so it lasted more than an hour after the rain started, but the rain was finally too much and killed my wonderful fire that I started on a soaking wet day. As night time neared, a couple of soaked hikers, Tangy and Raven stopped at the shelter to get out of the rain for the night. Today was not a good day to hike. Sometimes though, hiking in the rain is unavoidable. Had it not been for the tent and likelihood that many hikers who were here last night might be at the next shelter, we would have hiked too, Rain or shine we plan to get an early start tomorrow, but the forecast is more of the same. Yuk!