Woke up in a light fog, packed up and climbed Old Speck (a 4,000+ mountain that I’ve climbed before). The top of the mountain was in a cloud and effectively lightly raining. At the top there is cell signal and there was a family calling to get a shuttle at the trailhead so they could stay at a hotel “everything is wet… everything… we need to dry out”. It’s tempting but I’ve got 4 more days of food and this wasn’t an easy resupply (or so I thought at the time).
I can’t lie, I was in a pain from my fall the day before, I was wet, I hadn’t met anyone that I particularly clicked with yet and possibly worst of all my camera got water inside and wasn’t responding. I suspect my camera spent too much time under my poncho (which I’m trying as an alternative to a rain jacket) and got wet inside even with the water sealing (figuring the water vapor might be fine enough to get in). I felt like quitting.
As we started down the sun actually came out and I was feeling a lot better morale-wise. At the trail head there was a guy with trail magic, beer, coke, chips, donuts and Whoopie pies. That also picked up my spirits, I talked with him for a while and tried letting my stuff dry out a little.
I headed up the other side of the notch and again into a cloud. I expected it to rain, but it never did, just a fine mist.
As I headed down that mountain the weather started clearing again. I was very thankful because some of those sections would be super slippery if they were wet, some had actually dried a bit!
Down the other side into Frye Notch. When I got to the lean to, there was one guy there we talked a bit and I decided to stay since there isn’t much on the map for the next several miles. A couple others showed up, and everyone was friendly and super happy that it didn’t rain much.
Forecast for rain again tomorrow, but not all day, maybe I’ll get lucky again