March 23 mile 15.4-32 (Fred’s Canyon Tentsite)

We were serenaded by frogs all night along with a steady rain that hit early this morning. We woke at 6:30 and were up packing up inside the tent due to the rain by 7:00. We have new bottle cozies which allowed us to take hot coffee on the trail with us as we left camp at 8:00. We felt a little slow getting out of camp but we are attributing that to have to pack everything up while still in the tent.

When we left camp it was overcast and not raining so we didn’t leave with any rain gear. Well that lasted about a half mile. The rain started to fall even with some blue skies around us, but it was enough to don rain gear. Thank goodness because the rain didn’t let up until about 12:00. The first 4 miles were mostly uphill as we were heading to Lake Morena. We had read there was a store that served gigantic breakfast burritos, which sounded much better than our shakes we were planning on having. We got to the store at 10:00 soaking wet but were EXCITED to see the store open. We were able to get our burritos but unfortunately had to eat while hiking in the rain since you can’t be inside any restaurant these days. Those burritos were still damn tasty. Amy also was able to finally get some Oreos!!

While at the store getting our food we met a hiker who’s trail name is “Truck”, from her AT thru hike. She was asking how far we were going because she wanted to hopefully stay with other hikers since she is solo. Leaving Lake Morena we found ourselves hiking with Andre (who we camped with the night before) and Truck. We climbed out of Lake Morena still in the rain. The climbs so far have been pretty gradual and easy to take on. At about mile 9 just as the rain stopped we found ourselves at a river crossing, that typically wouldn’t have been bad except for the recent rain. Amy and I couldn’t find a good place to cross so we had to make due with some rock hoping that would work. The problem was the rocks weren’t stable so as I stepped onto the second one I started to look someone crossing a frozen pond on tennis shoes. My arms were flailing and twisting trying to help catch my balance before I took a swim. This was very amusing to Amy who was standing on the bank wishing she had her camera out. So much for keeping our feet dry.

We were then treated to some awesome meadows with oak trees and red grasses. We came upon a nice rock in the sun and decided it would be a great spot for lunch and to dry things out. We got to know Andre and Truck better as we passed the time. I opted for dry socks and took care of a blister that was bugging me. Can’t believe that has happed already. Then it was off as our goal was to get to mile 32 for the day. Literally not more than 5 minutes later we came to another much larger stream crossing. So it was off with the dry socks and back on with the wet, UGH!! Amy thought she found some wood we could cross on but as she reached the half way point the wood sunk as she was wet up to her mid calf. Guess all of that drying out was for nothing. What made it worse was that if we would have just looked at the map we could have seen there was a campground with tables we could have had lunch at instead just 5 more minutes from our last soaking.

The rest of the day was in more sunshine so we did warm up. We got to Fred’s Canyon Tentsite at about 5:00 which gave us about 17 miles for the day. Not too shabby for only the second day on the trail. The tentsites are nice and flat with nice logs to use for seats. We are being serenaded again by some frogs but the temps are much colder.

Thanks for reading.

Brian