Day 155 A wet 100 mile wilderness Day 3

Thursday 11th September

My alarm went off just before the rain started, I leapt out of bed and retrieved my food bag before it got soaked
I had just got back into my tent when whoosh down came the rain . bollocks I said very loudly and decided to get back into my bag and switch off the next two alarms.

The drumming on my tent soon sent me to sleep , I guess I just of needed it as I woke again at 7.30 . There seemed to be a lull in the rain, so I quickly put on a brew as I began to pack my bag and once every thing was packed I began tent dismantle in the rain.
I have become rather good at this . I unclip the fly from the tent from inside release the clips and roll the tent up leaving the fly standing, then I roll up the footprint and lastly the fly.
I was rather pleased , best effort so far. I drained my tea and I was ready. I walked down the trail trying to avoid all the huge puddles thinking to myself that if I had gone on I wouldn’t need to be doing this. I then came to another Ford……..
Now there are two important lessons here.

Lesson 1 , I should of known this by checking my guide last night . FAIL.
Lesson 2, When you reach a Ford do the obvious, take your shoes off and cross it …….What did I do ?
I walked all the way back to where I was camped looking for some where to rock hop. then decided that the rocks were to slippery
1,So ended up taking my shoes off anyway.
2, The point that I crossed was no where near the trail , I had to bushwhack back to the trail . wasting time , about an hour FAIL!!!!!.

Once I was back on trail it was slow going, there were so many vast puddles to manoeuvre around..Bollocks were some of my words I used.
I’m. have nice new shoes and I’m trying to keep them as dry as possible, even though the trail was wide it was a task. The trail decide to have fun , night mare it was completely covered in tree roots. In the dry they are a pain but in the wet they are lethal, I was unable to get any pace .In between these obstacles were the numerous stream after stream crossings . I began following the river, in some places it was wide and quite and times it dropped over falls with a deafening roar. I pushed on noting several campsites that I could of made if I had gone on .
I passed mustard’s hammock ,I recognised his chair that is similar to mine. I shouted some abuse which is customary and carried on .
I shortly met two hikers coming the other way
“great falls ahead” they said
but really I have seen enough of them but tried to sound interested .
I pushed on in the rain trying to avoid roots and slippery rocks eventually arriving at the shelter at 12 pm.
Twinkle was just about to leave but there were also four others in the shelter who had no intention of leaving.
I signed the log , noticing Kaleidoscope and So-hum had stayed but were long gone
I dropped pack and visited the loo .Wow it was new and rather grand.
I returned to the shelter and had lunch followed by a brew before setting set off .
The rain was still falling when I reached the first peak of my day Mountain Gulf haggis

Typically being rainy and foggy there were no views so i head off toward my next mountain that would be White Cap. On a clear day you can see Katahdin but highly unlikely today . The down was slippery so I was taking it easy as I was in no rush.
I hadn’t planned a big day 12 miles should do it with the climbing the rain and late start.
I had stopped earlier to get my ear buds out so was fairy happy as I made my way down the trail, there were several small climbs but nothing too serious .
The next minute I was lying on my back pointing downwards ..luckily I had grabbed a handful of roots or I would of fell further.
I’m not sure what happened but had slipped , I righted myself and retrieved my poles, I thought I may have broken a finger but it seemed to move . I was battered and bruised and really annoyed with myself. I also had another gash on.my knee.
“For Fucks sake” I said to myself
After getting up i stood still for several minutes before continuing on, the drop must of annoyed my phone as the volume kept going up and down on it own so i switched that off and continued on in a gloomy silence .
I shortly passed another camp site that was still dotted with tents as their owners not moving. I resisted the urge to shout “come on you lazy fuckers it’s only rain ” ,
and so passed the camp silently
my second climb arrived and in just under 2 hrs I had reached the top although it wasn’t White cap ..instead it was Hay Mountain …I was a little confused .
Back to lesson 1 read the guide .lol

In fact White cap was the next mountain and approximately 1 mile away so pushed on up heading for white Cap today’s target.
At last White cap mountain, it was foggy , misty, cloudy .I took the obligatory photo and began my descent .

The descent was over loose rock and so I was painfully slow as I didn’t want any more falls . At last I was back on mud and it would be just under 2 miles to the shelter and done….. hopefully . The decent was mostly down stone staircases which I quite like .

But in the rain I don’t trust them. I had to keep stopping as it was so quite, silence, no birds singing, no squirrels chattering just silence.
As i descended further I could see that the trail guys had been busy putting in new stairs . Wow I am impressed.
At last the shelter, I put out my chair before making the long awaited cuppa then put up my tent