Today, I woke up at about fifteen minutes till six to the staccato cadence of pelting rain on the fly of our tent. I took a video to capture the sound, looked around to make sure everything inside the tent was nice and dry, and started to get things packed up for our planned fourteen mile march into Hadley, Massachusetts.
Honestly, it was a pretty good walk. On the advice of people who had done this sort of thing before, we had lined our packs with Hefty trash compactor bags and we added a rain cover over the outside of the packs. Even though it rained for eleven of the fourteen miles, all of the gear that I needed to keep dry was dry at the end of the day.
My rain jacket and pants kept me warm enough, and the hills flattened out a little so we made very good time.
We even got to stop and wait for a train to pass. Pretty loud, and I don’t believed I’ve ever been this close to a train in a car. Pretty cool experience.
Waiting on a train in Belchertown, MA
We’re eight days into the trek, and we’ve covered a little over one hundred twenty miles. We’r averaging about fifteen miles a day which is slower than we’d hoped, but we’re going to take a zero day tomorrow to give ourselves a chance to recharge. Both Dad and I are pretty tired, and we decided that we’d take some time to rest instead of heading back out into the rain.
As more than one friend has told me, “You’ve got to listen to your body. I’m also going to take the opportunity to lighten my pack a little. An UA fleece, a pair of Prana Zion long pants, and a second set of gloves have served their purpose well, but it’s time to lighten the load. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s probably close to a couple of pounds, and I guarantee that I’ll be able to tell the difference.
It’s too early for real gear reviews, but the Enlightened Equipment down quilt and the Big Agnes Fly Creek tent are performing remarkably well. We'll let the facts play out a little longer, but my initial impression is that these were both very solid gear selections.
No comments:
Post a Comment