Date: 2008-04-30
From: Trout Creek

To: Blackburg
Miles today: 14.0

4/28. Wow, I can't believe it has been a month already. We have completed 376 miles. The only low days are when it rains and that rain tossed us a curve ball today. We were near Pickle shelter in our tents when the storm broke. We went to sleep with the pitter-patter of huge rain drops on the fly of the tents. We woke up to the same sound on our tents. :-( Finally at 8 am, I gave up on out-waiting the rain. In a small lull, I broke down my tent, packed my back-pack and told everyone I would wait for them10 miles down the trail at the next shelter. Shortly after starting on my 10 mile jaunt, the blackclouds grew darker and water fell from the sky in bucket loads. At this point, I realized that rain gear is good for one thing - and that one thing is NOT keeping you dry. The only reason I didn't take off the drenched rain gear..it was softening the blows of the bullet type rain that was hammering down upon me. At the 8 mile marker, my ceral bars had worn out. . .I was contemplating stopping and eating something, but it was still raining and only two more miles to go. Then I was stopped in my tracks by water.Lots and lots, gallons of it flowing rapidly outside the banks of the river. The first foot bridge I needed to cross was now standing a good 15 feet from the "new soggy" river bank. The water was not just hanging around soaking in, No it was running at a fairly good clip. Since everything I was wearing was completely soaked, I shrugged my shoulder and just started wading out to the bridge. As I gained the bridge and started crossing it, I felt good about my first major water crossing. I looked out to locate the trail once and stopped dead in my tracks. There was a second bridge about 30 yards away, all of which was under fast moving water. I stared out and quickly realized this was far more serious then the first crossing, especially as I watched several hunks of wood good sailing by.I decided that waiting for the other three might be a smart idea. While waiting the rain came to a stop. I marked the level of the water to see if it was getting higher or lower.Once the team caught up, we divided on how best to cross the stream. The water had slowly stopped rising and was starting to go down. But now the air temp was starting too drop. Two members wanted to attempt to find a bridge down stream (about a mile). Soaring and I were so wet already, we just wanted to cross and get to the shelter. Soaring and I struck out across the water. (see photo for a pic of Soaring on the first crossing. Due to the depth and speed on the second crossing, I placed my camera in a water proof bag.) We carefully felt our way across the second crossing which eventually came up to my mid thighs. We were smiling big when we reached the footbridge and walked acoss the remaining river.We beat feet to the shelter, hung stuff up to dry and chatted with several Northbounders. Rabbit and Owl came in an hour or so later. Their story is on their journal, so I will leave it untold here.The following day dawned with cold winds and SNOW! A quick look at the maps and a call to Terri (our blackburg Angel) helped us decided to pull on the trail and stay at a hotel for a night. This hotel is worth a whole trail entry by it self. So stay tuned and keep bouncing.. . .Tigger.