By now you've probably figured out what's happening. Those are thunder heads moving in. We're at 8400ft elevation looking at the lake where Walt was kneeling by the stream. This is the last picture I took for the next two and a half hours. We managed to reach the stream near the lake shown above in less than twenty minutes. I was refilling one of my water bottles at that little stream when Walt noticed a quarter sized rain drop hit the rock next to him. He yelled - "Mike get the garbage bags!" By the time I pulled his bag out of his pack and helped him pull it over his gear (35 seconds), I was soaked all the way down to my unmentionables! The rain was coming down in buckets. Within minutes the trail we were hiking on was six inches deep in fast moving water. The wind had kicked up and the temperature had dropped nearly twenty degrees.
We had prepared for this exact scenario and knew it was a likely possibility from the weather forecasts. However, being unprepared for this kind of rapid change is one of the most common mistakes made by inexperienced hikers. When hiking at elevation the weather can change from very warm (shorts, tee-shirts and sweat), to nearly freezing temperatures with golf ball size hail in less than thirty minutes. If you can't keep warm, you can begin suffering from exposure within an hour.
Although it was hot and sticky when we left, both of us were packing jackets and hefty bags. The lightning was lighting up the darkened skies and the thunder was echoing off the mountains. Huge water falls that didn't exist 30 minutes ago were cascading down the mountains. With granite everywhere there wasn't anyplace for the water to soak in, so it gathered up in the valleys and crevasses to make instant rivers. If it wasn't pouring so hard I would have snapped a few pictures. You had to be there to believe it.
We had hiked about another twenty minutes when we came across this family of backpackers huddled on the ground. The two kids had bags on and the mother at least had a jacket, but the father was wearing only shorts and a thin cotton tee-shirt. He was shaking so hard you'd think he was made of jello. I thought about throwing in an extra bag that morning, but was running late and didn't bother. I won't do that again. I really felt bad for the guy. He asked if I thought the storm was going to pass over quickly. I told him the weather forecasters were predicting a much warmer day on Sunday so the odds were good it would blow over, but I would have rather given him something other than a few encouraging words.
Walt and I weren't planning on staying overnight and we were rapidly running out of daylight (what little was coming through the clouds that is). We pressed on at a good clip as the storm continued to hammer us.
Finally after nearly two hours the rain had changed to a light sprinkle. We are about 35 minutes from the car and we decided to setup Walt's camera on a rock to record our condition. That blur to the right of Walt's face is a rain drop on the lens. Frankly, I can't remember the last time I had so much fun!
The sun had set a few minutes ago, but I used a really slow shutter speed to capture the lake and trees.
Here I adjusted more for the sky. My car is about twenty minutes away at the edge of the bay shown. An incredible end to a seven hour hike.