McAfee Knob

I have never been rained on so much while hiking. Heavy rain, steadily, for 18.8 miles. Sometimes it would get heavier. Only a few times did it lighten up slightly, and only just enough to get my hopes up. I started with a rain jacket on for a couple of miles but soon just packed it away and stayed sopping wet the whole day.

I didn’t sleep that well last night since I had set my alarm for 5:45 and am always paranoid about missing early alarms. Caz and Scott were going to meet me to hike McAfee Knob, since it was there and with them that I decided to thru hike a year and a half ago. When I woke up and it was pouring, I was hoping it’d be over by morning. I woke again at 5 and turned my phone on to see a message from Caz that it was pouring there too and looked to continue all day. Since I no longer had to meet them, I tried to go back to sleep for a while but it soon became apparent that a few spots on my tent need to be re-seam sealed and I was getting a few drips in.

I still didn’t feel like getting up and kept waiting for the rain to lighten. Finally I had to accept that it wasn’t going to and I needed to get moving if I wanted to make it to town. It turns out that one of the tent drips was onto my sock so I got to have a wet foot before even leaving the tent, not that it would have stayed dry for long.

I got started two hours after originally planned and was soon at McAfee Knob. I was the only person there so I had a fun time trying to set up my camera and timer in the rain to get my photo on the eagle rock. The background was completely gray and I would have been disappointed to miss it if I hadn’t hiked it before. As it was, I only stopped for a few minutes and kept going. I was sorry to miss the views from Tinker Cliffs later though.

I only stopped briefly one more time to grab a quick snack but it was too cold to stop much otherwise. I didn’t eat a whole lot but planned on catching up in town. All I kept thinking about was a dry bed and hot pizza. I made pretty good time and got to the motel right off the trail around 5:30 where Stretch and Storytime were staying. After a quick shower, we ran errands and then came back and ordered pizza. It was just as amazing as I thought it would be.