From Wildfire to Burnt Toast: Adventures in Wonderland: Day 7, A Change of Mind, but No Change of Clothes

“What a psalm the storm was singing, and how fresh the smell of the washed earth and leaves, and how sweet the still small voices of the storm!” - John Muir

(Though I usually love John Muir quotes, upon the remembrance of this day his above quote made me want to throw him over a cliff)

Reading my journal entry for day seven brought back every emotion and frustration I felt on that day. Our guide book talked about fantastic views of the mountain reflecting in Aurora Lake and even of sunsets reflecting off the far away Puget Sound waters, we however, had to reach into the deepest reserves of our imaginations to picture those images through the thick whiteness that was all around.

The night before was quite a challenge. The bugs fought us for a dry place to stay and we fought them to keep the tent to ourselves. I wore my maroon woolen hat to bed and remember specifically being in that sweet zone of almost asleep when a drip of water fell directly into my ear. In a fit that was mixed with surprise and irritation I ended up slapping myself on the head pretty hard and after that sleep was quite evasive. I spent most of the night dodging drips that fell, once they condensed largely enough, from the tent ceiling. The rest of the night I spent mentally writing a customer review to the company that manufactured my tent (that night, I was only going to give it half a star of satisfaction, and that half star was only because I would have felt ungrateful for the previous nights when it worked just fine).

The morning couldn't come fast enough. When it did however, it was just as cold as the night had been. The one thing I did not splurge on to prepare for this trip was rain gear. Good rain gear is ridiculously expensive and I thought myself pretty thrifty to purchase a $6 poncho that, when folded, was no bigger than a deck of cards. That was my single biggest regret of this journey. I may as well been wearing a plastic birthday party table cloth covered with My Little Ponies....that is how ridiculous I felt.

'What Not to Wear' Mountain version.

Luckily, Emily had some decent, if not ideal rain gear, but there I sat in my extra-large poncho and shivered as I ate my warm oatmeal (I think residents of Western Washington should get a discount on rain gear). We were anxious to get on the trail just so we weren't sitting in the wet camp anymore. Our only reservation was having to pack up the wet tent. Yuck!! We grinned and bore with the circumstances, however, and soon we were ready to leave.

Right outside of camp we encountered a very narrow trail with high brush on both sides. This brush had been bathed in the previous nights rain and the air that morning was misty so hiking for the most part of the day was like walking through a car wash. The highlight of the day were the blueberry bushes we hiked through. The taste of those berries beat any I've ever eaten before! I'm not sure if it was because they were nurtured by the purity of the high alpine climate or if it was just that fresh foods had been lacking in our diet, but boy, were they delicious! We ended the nearly 8-mile day at Golden Lakes. But instead of finding a campground with breathtaking views (with the fog, we couldn't see a lake if it were five feet in front of us) we found the one closest to the toilet. The bugs began attacking us and we were in the tent by 2 pm.

Our waterproof boots were soaked (another customer review was formulating in my mind at this point) and my feet looked like they did when I was kid and would take a bath that lasted until I got tired of playing only to get out and find that my toes looked like little white raisins. We changed into the driest clothes we could find and climbed into our sleeping bags to get warm. I snuggled up and fell asleep listening to the sound of light rain tapping on the outside of the tent. I don't know how long I had been sleeping before the single-most mind changing event took place; I was rudely awoken by some very cold water from my Platypus reservoir leaking out underneath me in between my sleeping bag and my sleeping pad, and therefore soaking both the bag, the pad, and myself! That did it, I would be heading off the mountain the next day with Emily. At this point, I had no more dry clothes or shoes, not even a dry sleeping bag.

Freezing cold, my teeth chattered and I shivered in a desperate attempt to keep warm. A very true fear of hypothermia set in and I could do nothing but lie on my pad with the only dry part of my bag on top of me. Tears rolled down my face as I struggled with emotions of fear and frustration. Darkness fell upon us and as it grew colder we both worried all the more. Emily and I lie as closely as possible but my body still shivered..not a good sign. I credit my safety that night to Emily's quick thinking and her selfless acts of caring.

Boiling her own water on her portable stove she filled her Nalgene bottle with the hot water and gave it to me to hold closely, she filled another bottle for me to put down by my feet. This did the job of keeping me warm despite the fact that I was sleeping on a wet pad and had only portions of a dry sleeping bag. At some point we just had to surrender the night to God and let Him take care of us, and He did.