Monday, July 27
When the alarm went off, it was sprinkling outside so we snoozed for another 30 minutes until the rain stopped. It looked clear so we got out and packed up.
We hiked along the divide and it was very exposed. No tree cover all all. Just more rolling grasslands. We met our second true northbound hiker who had braved the snow through Colorado.
The clouds started moving in and it was foggy. Then it began to rain. A lot. It was freezing too. The wind picked up and the rain was sideways. Our umbrellas were barely keeping their shape and I was nervous they would break in the wind. To block the rain we had to hold them almost parallel with the ground to our side.
We were only about 3 miles in when the rain started. We knew in 7 miles from camp the trail went off the divide and down to a lake. Hopefully the lake would have some trees and be low enough to give us a break from the sideways rain. We started hiking fast to get there.
About 2 miles from the lake we started getting hail, then snow, then a rain/snow mix. We were all soaked at this point and shivering from the cold.
The trail down to the lake was muddy and slippery. It was a game of holding on to the umbrella tightly against the wind and not trying to slip and fall down in the mud.
We made it to the lake and found a patch of trees to set up the tents in. It was 9:30am, but we were all too cold and wet to continue.
Getting warm in the tent took a while. But we eventually fell asleep until about 1pm. The rain had finally stopped. We set up a clothes line to try to dry our soaked clothes. The sun came out and Andy started a fire. We had a solid 20 minutes of fire time when the clouds came back over the ridge and the rain started back up. It was clear we weren't going any further today.
The rain turned into snow and it snowed for a long time.
Two other hikers came into camp later on. There are a bunch of hikers around us and most retreated into the trees to hide from the storm. Nobody was making miles today.
The snow let up around 7pm and we started back up the fire, tried to dry our clothes, and ate dinner.
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