I checked my sock tracking first thing in the morning and they had made it to Billings Montana. That’s about a 5 hour drive from Darby, their destination. I think they might make it tomorrow.
The weather looked nice as I began my hike. I passed Poles while he was sleeping and made it up over the first pass of the day. That’s when things changed. The sky ahead was looking dark and there was some thunder beginning to rumble.
I kept hiking on and the thunder turned into a constant rumble for almost 30 minutes. I’ve never heard anything like it. I was still below treeline so I hiked a bit more. It started to rain and I stopped to move some things in my bag into the waterproof liner in case it rained harder. Right after doing that the storm picked up and I ended up waiting under some trees with my umbrella. Strangely, I had cell phone service and could look at the radar of the storm. It was going to pass soon.
I hiked with my umbrella for a bit after the thunder passed and eventually the weather started to get better. Before lunch it actually got really nice out.
The weather stayed nice for most of the afternoon and was actually really hot for most of it. I had seen in the weather forecast earlier that there could be more storms but I was really hoping there wouldn’t be.
About that time, Poles caught up and we hiked together for awhile. The sky really got dark and there was a little lightning far off. We kept hiking and came to an old cabin that had some people hanging on the porch.
I knew these people! I had finally caught up to ET and most of the big group I’ve been hearing about for days. They were all planning on the same campsite as me so we all hiked on. Then it started raining. Pretty hard at times, and I was very thankful for my umbrella.
When we got to the camp there were a few tents set up. What do you know? One of them was Raider! He said Pitch had hiked on but couldn’t find a campsite because the next section was a burn area. It was awesome to see everyone again and now we’ll be able to hang out in town together.
I have to wake up pretty early to make it to the post office before they close, but so do a few other people camped here. At least I’ll have some company.