Monday, March 07, 2016

It poured during the night and my tent floor soaked through below my air mattress. The sky still looked ominous in the morning, so rather than hanging up anything to dry, I propped up my mattress inside my tent and hoped that everything would dry while I was gone (my tent would sooner commit seppuku than dry in the shade, but hope is healthy). Despite my puddle I was luckier than the campers beside me, who woke to a possum eating food that they had stored within their tent vestibule. ‘I thought the zipping sound was you unzipping your sleeping bag,’ said the wife to her husband. Nope. Beware the possums.

I was excited for my side trip to the Labyrinth because I had read that it was beautiful (a good reason) and because it has a cool name (not a good reason). The trail there didn’t involve scrambling, but it was steep. Is that a waterfall, or is it the path? On this trail, it’s both! I was using a dry sack as a daypack again, and (while acknowledging that I wasn’t using it for its intended purpose) not only was it totally useless against wet leaves, but it developed small holes. I’m not impressed.

The Labyrinth had beautiful trees, beautiful lakes and ponds, beautiful views. The sky cleared while I was up there, permitting both misty mountain views and clear blue sky mountain views. I didn’t explore much since my body informed me that it would need cheeseburgers for that, but I would have liked to.

I haven’t mentioned yet that I’ve eaten my extra food and also resorted to taking some odd-looking couscous from a free food box at Windy Ridge. Along with the couscous, there was mysterious brown powder and white powder/pale sticks that the Backgammon woman thought were powdered milk/bamboo shoots, but I wasn’t desperate enough to experiment with those.

Descending the trail was more difficult than ascending it. A man behind me fell on the waterfall section but didn’t hurt himself, luckily.

Back at camp I found that my tent hadn’t dried at all, but friendly sunlight had emerged to help. I spent the evening eating my last dinner food aside from the dodgy couscous and listening enviously to other hikers describe their fancy dehydrated meals.