This is Carter. I don't blog, or take pictures...so you'll have to take my word for what comes next. My life was saved by a false prophet.
It started as a normal hike up to the Lake of the Angels (LOA) in the Olympic Mountains. Myself and two of my buddies were planning a three day venture. You know, do something manly. Our number had already been dwindled down from something like 7 guys, but we were going to make the best of things.
We get on the trail around noon, considerably later than I wanted. I didn't anticipate it being a problem, We had plenty of time before dark...so I thought.
I have been hiking up to LOA for over half my life, since I was 13 years old. The longest I've ever spent on this trail in one day is 5 hrs. Don't misunderstand me, it's an aggressive hike. Only 4 miles each way, but it boasts a 3500 ft elevation gain. In the Washington Trails book they call it "Aggressive." It is mostly vertical, very little flat. Full of roots, rocks, and rivers. It also contains a few rock climbing moments along the way. So, it's hard, but it's still only 4 miles one way. Long story short, we were on the trail for 9 hours. Not a typo, 9 full hours on the trail.
For you math majors out there, that has us stopping around 9PM. That's darkish. To make matters so much better, it began to rain about 5 hrs into our trek. A pretty solid rain too. Not at first, but eventually we were being assaulted by a solid Washingtonian rain.
We had been on the trail for so long, we figured that we had to be close, right? How in the world could the lake be much further? We decided that I should run ahead to find out. I knew that the Lake of the False Prophet was the last landmark before LOA, but I wasn't exactly sure about where to do next. I went the wrong way. I lost the trail and ended up completely lost...for about 10 min. I know it doesn't seem like much, but I was in the wilderness. I panicked. Just for a second, but I panicked. I had no idea where I was, but I also knew that if I got back to the Lake of the False Prophet I'd be alright. Eventually, I found the False Prophet and made my way back to my companions.
They thought I had died and were preparing to mount a search party. As much as I appreciate that, it would have made things so much worse.
This is the end of the story...we didn't make it. It got dark, and was still raining. So we stopped and camped for the night. I set my tent up...kinda. We didn't eat, we didn't change out of our wet clothes, we didn't really sleep. Everything was wet, everything. My sleeping bag, my tent, ALL my clothes, my sleeping pad, all of it. It was so wet I "slept" with a moat of water inside my tent around my sleeping pad. It was awful, just awful.
The next morning, we got up and went home.
...So, that's my story.
