CDT - Day 132 - Stinging Hail and Broken Zippers
Finally, a morning without rain! Though it did rain hard last night, and everything outside was still wet. Some water managed to get into my tent again, and this time it was my pants that got soaked. I need to get better at pulling up the bathtub floor along the sides and keeping everything away from the mesh.
The first few hours of hiking were relatively dry, and my clothes eventually dried out. The constant rain over the last few days has really started eating away at morale. Our goal each day has been 23-plus miles, but we've barely managed 20 because the weather has been so miserable.
This afternoon, it started raining hard again, complete with lightning, thunder, and stinging hail. Eventually, we'd had enough and decided to call it early at Page Lake. Thankfully, there's a really nice established campsite overlooking the lake.
Then, while setting up my tent, the outer zipper finally broke and detached itself on one side.
Ugh. I wanted to cry.
Without that zipper, I wouldn't have a functional vestibule, and my tent would no longer be waterproof. Using my pliers, I somehow managed to mostly fix it, and I can now close the vestibule enough to keep the rain and wind out. I'll have to be extremely careful with the zipper from now on. If it gets any worse, I might need to buy a new tent.
On the positive side, I had Mountain House Chicken and Dumplings for dinner, which I absolutely love. After several days of cold rain, wet gear, blowdowns, hail, and now a broken tent zipper, a warm dinner and hot cocoa were exactly the morale boost I needed.
Sometimes it's the little things.