January 5, 2010          Thinking about RAINGEAR!

Today Bill (White Beard) and I spent the day hiking at Point Reyes Nat’l. Seashore.  The weather report, as usual for lately, was for cold and possible showers–so our daypacks included raingear…which makes me want to put in our “take” on raingear for the PCT.

Back in 2005, when we were planning our first PCT thruhike,  we were trying out all sorts of raingear.  We had lots of questions: “Should we go with waterproof/breatheable, or just plain waterproof?”  was the biggest one.  The first conclusion was: even the supposedly waterproof/breatheable gets all wet with sweat in short order.  The next consideration was WEIGHT.  All the raingear we looked at and tried out seemed heeeeeavy.  Then I got Ray Jardine’s Tarp Book and had a revelation: hey, if you can sew a TARP out of silnylon, why not make raingear?

So through my absolute favorite supplier for outdoor fabrics ‘n stuff, called The Rain Shed, Inc., in Corvallis, Oregon,  I got a raingear pattern and lightweight silnylon, and sewed up two sets of SUPER LIGHTWEIGHT raingear for us.  They were no frills–no pockets, no pit zips, no velcro,  no nothing–just a separating zipper for the top, and the bottom had legs big enough that you could put it on without taking off your shoes.  Now I know, I know–silnylon technically isn’t really waterproof–but it took us dry and comfortable through days on end of rain on the PCT, so I have no complaints! 

In addition, the raingear did triple duty–besides warding off rain, it  kept me WARM when it was freezing cold, and kept the MOSQUITOES off, too!  And when it was cold and WINDY, I just put on my raingear and hiked nice and warm along the trail.  (The area I most needed that was around Sonora Pass, by the way–that is one COLD, WINDY place!).

But silnylon definitely has a “half-life”–I will have to make a new set of raingear for us now that it’s 2010. 

In the rain, besides the silnylon raingear, I also depended on my wide-brimmed  “Sunday Afternoon” hat (I got it at REI) and my GoLite hiking umbrella.  I even made a pair of large silnylon MITTENS to wear, and ended up using them a lot to keep my hands warm when it was cold, even if it wasn’t raining. 

Well, our hike today at Point Reyes turned out to be chilly but with occasional sun.  There were a lot of little brown bunny rabbits out playing on the trails, but what totally blew me away today were the MUSHROOMS!   Never in my life have I seen so many mushrooms.  In all the damp & shady places, they were everywhere, all sorts and colors.  In the particularly “deep, dark” sections of forest, the small, light-colored mushrooms that were all over the forest floor almost looked like stars.   I saw lots of mushrooms on the PCT (up in Washington State, especially) but nothing like this!  Wow!

The big highlight of the day, though, was a stop at the Point Reyes Visitor Center, where (ta-da) I got my very own “Golden Age Pass.”  Now that I’m 62, I can flash that pass and get into Yosemite for free (or any other national park) and camp for half price.   There are definitely benefits to being old–more wisdom (I hope) and a Golden Age Pass!