26 July 2017, 20:00
Location: Deadman Lake - N40.77166° W109.91210°
Elevation: 10,980'
Ascent: 2363' (Total: 5905')
Descent: 1125' (Total: 3052')
Day Distance: 12.1 miles (Total: 34.59 miles)
Apparently I got a late start. When my watch died yesterday, the time got messed up, and I didn't notice. It is off by an hour and a half. As a result, when I called Shelly, I was late and she was pretty scared that something had happened. The watch (fitbit blaze) has no way to reset the time without syncing and syncing requires Internet, which I don't have. I am going to have to remember that it is later than the watch is reporting. Lucky for me, the GPS has the correct time. I will just need to check that instead of the watch.
When I got up this morning, the sun was out, so I took my time, thinking it was early (watch), letting some things dry out. The sky began to darken to the west, which was mostly blocked by trees at my camp site. Shortly after I hit the trail it started to rain again. My sock were wet to start the day, as were my shoes. Since Summit Park is mostly one big bog, they stayed wet. I had used some tape (leuko) on my blister, but I scrimped a little in size. Soon my blister began to heat up again by the time I got to the Hacking Lake Trail head. At the road, where the trail comes out, there is a huge flat rock across from the road from the trail. I walked over, set my pack down, and took off my shoe and sock. I wrung the water out of the sock, the tape was still on but the adhesive had separated. I re-taped using a larger piece. I then put it all back on. I then removed the other shoe and sock, inspected the foot, wrung water out, and replaced everything before walking up the road to the trail.
As I was climbing to the shoulder of Leidy Peak, clouds started blowing in, and at times I couldn't see 20 yards through the clouds/mist. Makes it very hard to pick out landmarks and stay on trail since there is not a worn path through this area. It rained on and off for the entire day. My shoes would start to get some dry spots, on the outside and then it would rain. After traversing the north side of Leidy Peak the sun finally came out, and I ate lunch there on the ridge line. As I finished lunch, the sun disappeared and clouds blew back in. This set was accompanied by thunder. I never saw a flash of lightening, but to the south there was a lot of noise. The trail from Leidy Peak to Deadman is all above tree line, with no way off the mountain. The thunder was scary. As I neared Gabro Pass the thunder that was well behind, at this point, quieted down. There was a huge snow field blocking Gabro Pass. I had to transition from the north side to the south side of the pass because the trail was completely blocked by a 20' wall of vertical snow. Even from the south side I still had to cross about 30 yards of steeply sloped snow. Luckily no mishaps. As I crested Gabro Pass another thunder storm moved in. This time the storm was right on top of me, and I had a mile descent to Deadman Lake, all above tree line. Let's just say it was a bit spooky.
The rain was only a sprinkle until I got to Deadman Lake. Then the skies opened up and turned into a hard driving rain with thunder for over an hour. It even hailed for a few minutes. I found a dry spot inside a small grove of trees. I know trees are not good cover during a lightening storm but this was a low set surrounded by much larger tree nearby. After the heavy rain let up, I pitched the tent and moved in. While I was inside, inflating the air mattress, the sun came out. So I made dinner, then puttered around waiting for 19:00 to call Shelly. That's when I found out the error in my watch time. After the call, I crawled into the tent, getting ready to call it a day. The rain started back up, and I fell asleep to the rain.
