First off I managed a backpacking trip with Amy and Maggie up in the Cascades just outside of Leavenworth. We went on Labor Day weekend to get in three days and two nights of goodness. Amy had done all the work for this one figuring out where we were going and camping, so all I had to do was show up. That was a pretty sweet. Well the week of the trip I kept checking the weather to see if it was going to be nice. I really wanted to take my bivy because Amy and Maggie were taking their dogs which would be sleeping in their tents. This means I either need to take a tent up just for me or else I need to check out the ol bivy. Since the weather looked nice I decided on the bivy.
The problem here is that whenever I do a trip, any trip, something goes wrong. As soon as I decided to take the bivy I knew the weather would turn and it would rain. I just knew it would. When we started hiking on Saturday it was great weather, not too hot but sunny. We went about 11 miles in to the campsite right along a lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. It was a pretty amazing spot. Definitely can't complain about the location.
Once the girls set up camp and we start cooking it starts getting a little colder... After dinner we hike up to another lake right in a very tight cirque and it was gorgeous. Quite the setting... After we hike back to camp and sit down for a few minutes I am getting cold. Anyone that knows me knows I am always hot. Always. Once the sun starts setting the girls head for their tents and I start to set out my bivy. As I'm doing this what happens? Yep, it starts raining. This means I'm in a glorified sleeping bag trying not to get claustrophobic while trying to stay dry at the same time. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep. I woke up at one point and the continuous rain was getting louder... and yes it was snow. What backpacking trip with me is complete without snow?
When we woke up it was raining and continued to rain throughout the day. It would quit for a while here and there and slowed up quite a bit, but it was still wet. Well we packed up camp and headed to another lake to make our hike out of this loop only 10 miles. This means it is up and over a pass and down into a huge valley. This was even more gorgeous than the other camp. It was such a great area....
Well, by this point I'm getting cold as everyone is setting up camp so while the girls go on a short hike to get the blood flowing I hop in my sleeping bag knowing I don't have enough calories to keep trying to make me warm and/or hike more (you would think that since I had a strong hunch it was going to be raining I might have packed more food in preparation of being cold and burning more calories). So I sleep the afternoon away and wake up in time to cook dinner with the girls and promptly take off to my bivy for a night of sleep in the rain again.
The next day was pretty nice and we hiked out in pretty nice weather. It seems like we were caught up in the storm at the higher altitude and if we had just hiked a couple more miles we would have been in the clear. Interesting weather....
The hike out was pretty uneventful other than once we got back to the car it did start raining again.
The last bad part of this story is that I don't have any pictures. I managed to lose my camera in the move and I had been looking everywhere for it. I knew I packed it somewhere but just couldn't figure it out before the trip. Low and behold after all this I finally find my camera while I'm looking for my bike tool. So the point is I didn't have it for the hike but I have it now.... Yep......
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