Mount Algo to Ten Mile River Lean-to

9.4 miles

Misty, rainy vista

Today I walked in the rain for two hours, breaking my own rule:  never start in the rain.  Maybe this is a difference between section- and thru-hiking, too—sometimes rain-walking is worth it for the section hiker.  For me, to have some time alone in the woods, my stated purpose.  And my gear is resoundingly waterproof, so it’d be only myself getting wet.

Also the thrill of it, the experience, because it is a novelty and not drudgery.  And in the misty morning, a deer, a doe, jumped across the trail in front of me.  Vistas appeared and disappeared in wreaths of fog.  I forget about just how present I am with nature out here, or forget to write about it, what with my complaints about mileage and thru-hikers.  Still, I’m in the wild, above the highway roar that occasionally comes from a thousand feet below.

I surprise deer sometimes, hiking without poles.  I seek all-red birds, black-and-white striped birds (Baltimore orioles?).  On a sunny day, a garter snake slithered across my feet, surprised.  He felt weightless, like he floated on air.

Tonight I camp with Euchre, from Michigan (natch), and Superman, who does a headstand atop every mountain.  We discuss gear and climate change, one of many conversations I’ve been having with fellow hikers about climate change.  I feel like an evangelist or a prophet, someone obnoxious at least, how I bring every conversation back to it.  But it is inescapable, in my own mind and in my written and spoken dialog.  I can’t stop thinking or writing or talking about it.

The afternoon, after the rain cleared, was lovely hiking weather, and since I packed in a shelter and camp in a shelter, my gear is completely dry.