Mile 2041 to 2067.
Cold and wet and muddy! This is new. Daypack woke up with standing water in their tent after a night of good rain. I watched Tracker (the hiker formerly known as Dayhike) turn the tent on one end and drain a couple liters of pure, delicious rain water out of the inside. A fun way to start the day!
The day stayed gray and overcast with small spits of rain, but if never really got ugly. We tried to dry out our stuff at lunch, but without the sun it didn’t do much.
I walked with tracker for a good part of the morning, and we threw business ideas back and forth. We really enjoy talking about how our current camping gear could be improved. It’s an enjoyable topic and keeps our minds churning.
The afternoon looked and felt like the Oregon I had in my head before ever setting foot in the state. Monstrous trees with moss and old man's beard hanging down. Thick green undergrowth (lots of rhododendron I think) and a smooth, light brown path weaving its way through the goodness.
At one point I stopped moving and realized just how noiseless the woods are here. This is not typical, as there is the chittering of birds, leaves rustling, chipmunks making quite odd squeaking noises. But here, in these woods, it was the kind of quiet that starts to feel like pressure on your ears. I stayed still for a few minutes enjoying the silence and the peace, and thinking about how the few hundred-year-old trees have existed in this silence for their entire lives.
