Planning a good day hike in late Fall in Oregon can be a challenge – especially when one’s calendar is not completely flexible, i.e., hiking on a specific day. That was my situation this week – I was going to hike on Tuesday given the Thursday holiday. The hike needed to be an endurance / stamina push as recent hikes have all been ‘moderate’ given the length and elevation gain. So, going back to planning … days before I watched the weather change around, but knew that it was going to rain.
The night before I checked again – 30% chance of rain and higher at different times – I was going to get wet. Rather than plan a LONG hike with moderate elevation gain and going longer distance away from the car, I planned to go up / down multiple times for a shorter distance hike but challenging elevation gain. Also, not straying too far from the car was important in the contingency that the rain was heavier than planned and I got soaked – hiking in cold weather while very wet is not fun, regardless of gear quality (imho). The plan worked.
Rain it did, fog was thick, birds were quiet and humans were few – a great peaceful hike. Given the probability of rain (and getting wet), the better camera stayed home and all pics from iPhone SE2.
GaiaGPS stats look like this (basically 2 long ups and 2 short ups)
This was a great hike and the increased pace from those recent moderate hikes proves the elevation gain was material and the challenge to my endurance too – I was tired upon arrival home – I also did not get that wet inside my shell. My wet-weather packing methodology will be an upcoming post, as in Oregon one plans to get rained on hiking between October and June.