August 27

Puddle

I headed out this morning at 9am.  Just as I was leaving, a guy named 'Longshot' had come up to the summit to check on any hikers up here.  He handed out some delicious homemade 7-layer bars.  Calorie packed treats that included chocolate, butterscotch chips, and coconut.  Coming down Smarts was a breeze.  It only took me an hour and a half to make the 4 mile descent.  I stopped for water at South Jacobs Brook, before heading up the climb of Mt. Cube.  It wasn't too bad, but the air was humid, so that made it taxing.  Past Eastman Ledges, past the side trail to Hexacuba shelter, three miles of climbing to the south peak of Mt. Cube.  I ate lunch up there, and took a 2hr break.  The hike this afternoon, leaving Cube, was easy.  Just a long, gradual downhill section to a road crossing, then a slight climb up to the Ore Hill campsite.  We all ended up stopping for the day here after about 13 miles.  Partly due to being worn out from yesterday, and partly due to the looks of the clouds darkening the sky.  Good decision.  Sure enough, as soon as we got our tents set up, it started to pour.  I picked a terrible place to put my tent.  The ground looked soft and flat, but I was situated in a low spot where the rain water began to pool up.  The front vestibule of my tent was a puddle.  The area in front of the door, inside the tent, began to seep a little bit of water through the tent floor.  I had a puddle of water in between the ground cloth and the floor of my tent, and the pressure of me sitting there was forcing the water through the fabric.  Not good.  I had wanted to cook a hot meal with my stove, in the vestibule, under the cover of my rainfly.  The puddle there prevented me from doing that.  I just ate a bit of my snacks for dinner instead, curled up at the other end of my tent.  I didn't sleep well at all.  The sound of the rain was nice, but I kept waking up when the wind would pick up.  At times, the rain would come down really hard.  In addition to that, I would toss and turn, trying to keep the foot of my sleeping bag out of the puddle.  Not fun.

Hiking toward Mt. Cube.