Up at 6am, more or less in sync with everyone else at camp. Breakfast: oats, hot water, and a generous splash of Tabasco. Maybe unconventional, but it works. When you’re carrying everything on your back and flavour is otherwise absent, you improvise. A few fellow hikers offered suggestions — I filed them away for later. For now, the Tabasco oats did the job.
Out by 7:45am. It had rained heavily overnight, and it kept raining. Not just drizzle — proper rain, for about half the day. Everything was wet. The air was cold and the trail turned soft underfoot. You put your head down and walk anyway.
Mid-morning, one of the hikers told me a story about the Rainmaker — not a trail name, more of a trail legend. Someone who had supposedly passed through this stretch before, and everywhere they went, rain followed. Whether that’s true or not, it made for good conversation while the sky did exactly that overhead.
Mile 32 came in the early afternoon. My legs were working, the pack felt manageable. Not fast, but steady. By the time camp appeared in the distance, the rain had eased off and the hills had started to dry. Set up the tent. Made dinner. That was day two.
Photos — April 13
