OH, a hard rain’s a gonna fall! We woke up this morning to sunny skies. As with every morning, I waited for Bob to make coffee and oatmeal before daring out of my polar sleeping bag. It was warm and sunny and we headed off to Tiffany Meadows/Lake with the idea of hiking a long loop around the large lake, 2 smaller lakes, and the meadows.
It was a 30 minute drive and by the time we arrived at the trailhead, doom and gloom had come to this unsuspecting land. Bob said, “That’s why we have all this rain gear!” And I couldn’t argue 
with that as my parents did buy me some very nice rain gear. We suited up and headed out in a mild drizzle. It rained intermittently for the first 3 miles. We stopped for lunch, which we ate quickly as the clouds loomed above our fresh bread. Just as we got everything back in our bags and zipped up, the hail came.
A quarter mile further the lightning came. The rain never left. We decided this was far enough and turned around several miles short of our initial plan. We were in a large burn area from a forest fire a few years back, so there was very little tree cover. The trees that remained were just telephone poles with no branches or leaves and burnt black. They are a bit precarious; they look like a stiff breeze will cause a domino effect. The lightning did not make us feel better about the trees falling on our heads, so we made some time.
In the end, everything was A-OK and it was actually pretty cool because at 7000 feet we were pretty much sitting in this low lying rain cloud. Everything was hazy, like when an airplane passes through a storm. Only there were no bloody marys or peanuts, or in flight movies; just us in ridiculous pants and not so water tight boots. Tonight there will be a fire (Hopefully), but the horizon appears to have other things in store.
2 comments:
Mom said you look like you could use a lady bar in that first picture, bob!
Yeah, she told me. Now that i look at it, i do look like a little kid. I think it's going to have to come down.
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