Day 139 : A wet, windy Washington welcome

5th September 2013
Mile 2178 to mile 2208 : Trailside camp to horsecamp
Mileage : 30

An hour or so before dawn i awoke to raindrops landing on my face. I had anticipated rainand had my tent ready to pull over me to keep me dry. This actually worked quite well, and during a short lull as the forest lightened i packed up quickly eating breakfast on the hoof to speed things up. The first half of the day passed as normal, although with a short magic stop provided by Sagegirl. While sitting having a cup of coffee and an apple with Sagegirl with a couple other hikers conversation turned to another magic 20 miles farther up the trail. I resolved to push on to this next magic hoping for some shelter there a major storm was forecast for the next 48 hours. The forecast didn't disappoint and sure enough the rain started as predicted in the middle of the afternoon. At first i hoped the precipitation was due to the fact the i was walking in a cloud and that ut would.stop.who i descended out of it, but soon it became clear that this rain was here to stay. I raced on as fast as i could determined not to spend one minute longer in the rain than i had to. As i hiked i realised i had a conumdrum on my hands courtesy to my lack of headtorch. Should i stop while there was light and resign myself to a night of torential rain, or should i press on as fast as possible hoping to make it to the magic before the losing the light altogether. This option included the risks of my tripping over unseen roots and rocks in the dark, and losing the trail in the dark. I decided to risk it and picked uo the pace pace to the point where i was practically running down the trail, my path illuminated regularly by the huge flashes of lightning that thankfully stayed far enough away from me to not be a concern. It was pitch black when i finally made it to the magic, but made it. There i found about 15 hikers huddled around around a roaring fire eating hot soup provided by a husband and wife team whose names escape me as i write this. After warming up with fire, soup and dinner i began thinking about sleep. The ground was becoming saturated and slowly becoming one giant lake, and i could see anyone sleeping on the ground, regardless.of the tent used, was.going to get very wet. I decided therefore, to sleep on the porch of the outhouse, a good idea, as it turned out.