SUMMARY:  To our surprise, it began to rain last night and continued till we were getting ready to pack up. We put on raingear partly to stay warm (the wind was strong and cold) and partly because it looked like more rain.

The trail climbed higher and higher, till we were in snow left over from Monday. The wind grew more and more fierce until it was the strongest wind I have ever personally experienced. I could hardly walk, only take one step at a time while bracing myself and trying not to get blown over. Actually, at one point, the wind did knock me right down onto the ground. It was insane. But we kept going as best we could, and now we are finally down in a quiet, forested river valley. What a relief!

DETAILS:   I was so tired that last night I totally zonked out and didn’t even know it when rain arrived and the wind picked up till it was blowing so hard that even our somewhat protected campsite was being blasted.  The wind blew so hard that one of our tent guylines was pulled off its stake, and one of the trek poles that holds up the tent fell right on top of me….and I never knew it.  I just slept through the whole thing, and it was Fixit who got up in the rain and fierce wind to refasten the guy line and reset the trek pole.  I was absolutely amazed when he tol me about it while we were eating breakfast.  We were still in the tent, and it was raining and the wind was blowing.  Oh man, what a night!  And me, oblivious.

But hooray, just as it was packup time, the rain stopped, so we did not have to deal with the “fun” of doing it in the rain.  The wind was something else, though–howling and roaring and fierce and cold.  We remembered that back when we were in Lincoln, the weather report had said that today would be “very windy.”  No kidding!

We set out wearing all our raingear plus some “warm layers.”  The trail went up and up–finally we were up so high that there was a lot of snow, left from the previous storm.  But we weren’t done–the CDT went still higher, till we were IN the clouds, and it began to snow–not big soft globs like it did before we went to Lincoln, but tiny, dry flakes that didn’t seem to stick to the ground–they just blew away.  Finally we broke out of the clouds and were onto bare, grassy ridgetops.  The views were spectacular (yes, I know, I keep saying that–but it’s true!).  There were steep-sided mountains still speckled and brushed with snow, and amazing rock formations.

But the wind grew worse.  I have never in my life experienced anything like it.   I could hardly walk at all, even with the help of my trek poles.  I just put my head down and did my best to keep going, staggering along like a drunken sailor.  What made it additionally scary was that to our left, it was a rounded hillside, but to the right, it was sheer cliffs and big dropoffs.  Which way was the wind coming from?  You guessed it, from the left, pushing us toward the right.  So I just gave up trying to walk on the trail (too close to the cliffs) and instead walked along much more to the left.  Part of what makes this type of situation harder for me is that I have my RidgeRest ground pad rolled up and lashed to the top of my pack, which gives me a much broader profile in wind, and makes it a lot harder for me than for Fixit, whose pack is very narrow by comparison.  At one point, I was so tired from fighting the wind, that along came one big blast that just pushed me over to the point where all I could do was lie down on the ground for a minute before getting back on my feet.

On top of all that, I was very worried about Fixit’s hands.  He’s had several operations on them for Dupuytren’s Contracture, and one side effect is that the circulation is not as good and his hands get awfully cold and stiff to the point where he can barely use them.  So knowing how cold the CDT can be, he brought some really warm gloves, but the problem is, they are so bulky that he can’t easily get his rain mitts over them.  This morning he decided to just hike without the gloves and have rain mitts only.  But the wind was freezing cold, and blowing little bits of icy snow at us.  I was hugely worried about Fixit’s hands in those conditions, and as I staggered along, I started praying like crazy, “Oh please, Lord, stop this wind and snow for just enough time that we can stop and get Fixit’s gloves on!”   And the Lord did.  The wind stopped for just a little while, and that gave us precious time to get the gloves out and go through the battle of getting the rain mitts to go over them.  I’m the one who made the rain mitts, and if I had known ahead of time that Fixit was bringing such huge gloves, I would have made the rain mitts way bigger.   But I didn’t know till we were well into the trail and it was too late.

After that brief hiatus (Thank you, Lord!) the wind came back with a vengeance.  It was truly awful.  For hours we were up high on very exposed ridges with not even a tree or bush to give us shelter. Most of the time the wind was coming from the side, which was sort of a blessing–had it been a headwind, that would have been truly horrendous.   Finally, finally, the CDT began to drop down into a valley, where we had a bit more protection.  But even there, we saw one of the CDT hikers who was just ahead of us, suddenly veering off the trail and running, because her hat had blown off and she was trying to catch it before it was totally blown away.  She did manage to retrieve it!  She told me later how scared she was about “What will I do with no hat?”  All of us hikers pretty much depend on our hats for sun protection.

Once we were down off the high, exposed ridges, I was hoping we would be able to stay off them for the rest of the day, and whew, it turned out OK.  I was even able to cook us a late lunch in a sheltered spot.  Hot lunch, oh yes!  We were so cold and windblown that it was wonderful to be having something warm to eat, and be out of the wind for awhile.  Finally we reached the Dearborne River valley, so the rest of the day we were just plain ol’ walking up a valley, with very pretty trees and plants, and of course, the river.

Today, once again, we were being passed by a number of young CDT hikers.  They all started a lot earlier than we did, but apparently spent a lot of time messing around in towns along the way, so we ended up passing them.  But the Canada finish line “clock” is now running out of time, so they are all turning on the afterburners to finish up before the snow really gets serious, and as a result, they are all passing us.

We are camped tonight by a trail junction.  It’s not raining and it’s not windy, which is nice.  And when I figured out our mileage, I was very pleased to find that even with the insane wind battle, we still did 22 miles.  Tomorrow we should be at Benchmark Ranch, and are thinking about things like “Showers!  Maybe a bed!”