How many consecutive days of rain or snow have you hiked through?
How many consecutive days of rain or snow have you hiked through? Include days even if it only rained a few minutes during that day.
2003 was a wet year ...probably the wettest on record. In fact, I added a small mud puddle to the bottom of my tattoo to commemorate the deluge.
If memory serves correct we had 21 days of rain in May and June. You got pretty used to waking up, hiking and going to sleep in the rain.
'Slogger
The more I learn ...the more I realize I don't know.
18 days SOBO on the Long Trail in August 1979, plus it was cold, with morning temps frequently in the 30s.
GA←↕→ME: 1973 to 2014
2003, Annus Horribilus
Slogger's right.....'03 was about the worst I've ever seen out there. There was a 24-day stretch where we didn't see the sun. Ever. We were wet ALL the time....got so bad you didn't wanna look in your pack at the end of the day because there'd practically be mushrooms and other fungal crud growing in there by dinnertime. People were literally going crazy from the rain, and a lot of folks quit in central Virginia.
I don't think I'll ever complain about rain again. 2003 took the cake.
My wife, Gutsy hiked in 2003 and she agrees that rain was an almost constant companion. I often checked the NWS website only to find more of the same thrown at the Trail day after day. Kinda depressing, but also a badge of honor.Originally Posted by Footslogger
Hurricane Agnes
There were about 16 days of rain as hurricane Agnes passed over. It rained 30 of the first 46 days of my hike. Had good weather for the rest of the hike.
2003 LT hike, 12 days in a row of rain, then the sun came out, by that time I was half way through! Glad I wasn't hiking through that months and months on end..............yuck!!!
it rain intensley in vermont and newhampshire this past oct,it rain 9 out of the 12 daysneo
23 out of 25 of my first days on the trail in 2000, it rained, sleeted, snowed, or some combination. one clear day was Easter. i can't remember when the other one was, but there was another. that probably counts fog so heavy that everything is dripping wet too.
You guys are a bunch of lightweights!
In 2000, I stopped counting after 30 consecutive days of rain in Spring. When calling home, my parents would ask where I was. I would respond, "under that rain cloud on the Weather Channel."
I was on the trail 167 days. Of that, more than 100 were days of rain.
Oddly enough, for the next couple of years, I hated hiking in the rain...even just for a couple of days. But now I don't mind it so much, it kinda takes me back to my AT days...sniff...sniff...
Viva El Nino!
-Howie
In the Pyrenees, we wanted to hike the border which is the top of the mtns. It was usually raining on the French (north ) side (which was the nicer side to resupply) which caused fog on the top. So, we ended up hiking in Spain about 1/3 of the time just to get some sun.
So, everyday (almost) you had a choice: hike in the rain, the fog, or the sun.
we ended up doing about a third of each.
ps. the food was much better in France and the women more beautiful
Great to see a post Hungry Howie. 2000 was a wet year. We did some of that stretch with you. If I remember there was record flooding in Vermont when we went thru. I do remember it being close to 21 days for us. Was just looking, and it appears they Vermont was declared a fed disaster for the flooding on 27 July 2000.
Last edited by PROFILE; 12-15-2005 at 08:42.
Profile '00
www.hikerhostel.com
I concur a/b '03, had to be the worst. living in VA and working in the construction field, we got a lot of days off. i'm def glad i sobo'ed that year.
in '01 though, we had rain from monson, all the way to gorham, with no breaks, even for the notch.
No more than 2. I ain't dumb enough to hike day after day in the rain.
Although I only did brief section hikes in '03, I remember how rainy it was. I was very fortunate - in a 3 1/2 day, 52 mile section hike in May (Rausch Gap-to-Port Clinton), it only rained 2 days. I remember meeting some thruhikers who had experienced constant rain from Harpers Ferry.
Yet in September '03 hiking 45 miles Eckville-to-Wind Gap, it was so dry that water was a problem. Too bad the rain wasn't more spread out.
Fall '04 hiking SOBO Allen Gap-to-Wallace Gap, I had one stretch of 9 days where it rained on 8 of them. But the most uncomfortable hike was the Long Trail May of '79. Hiking from Brandon Gap to Lincoln Gap, 4 days of constant hard-driving rain.
Like Hungry Howie said, 2000 was pretty dang wet. It can really sap your attitude, but when the sun finally does comes out, man is it sweet! I still remember drying my stuff out atop Hump Mountain among the Longhorn turds - after 7-10 days of on/off rain. Twas a great day. Those are the kind of memories that linger long beyond the hike.
'All my lies are always wishes" ~Jeff Tweedy~
Yup, I was at Gifford Woods SP right around then. In fact, my wife pulled a massive Hiker Feed with pancakes, bacon and Green Mountain Coffee. Good times!
When I left the park it rained something like 10-12" in a day or so. The trail turned into one big stream. One of my Lekis fell off a bridge into a raging torrent and it was all I could do to get it back. Crazy stuff. That's when a shelter can be really sweet in the middle of the woods.
'All my lies are always wishes" ~Jeff Tweedy~
how many days of rain or snow have you hiked through
Heck I stayed on A mt top for a month and hiked to the mt in the snow and ice,but when it comes to the rain asta lavista baby,I hate hiking in the rain,my tent comes out and i hideky
There was a thru hiker in 2003, maybe some of you met him, his trail name ended up being Miles to Go.....The point is he wrote articles that were printed every 2 weeks in the Gainesville Sun (Sun, how ironical) about his NOBO journey. Every week it was about the rain on the trail and how he was combating his foot rot. He ran into a blizzard around Allan Gap, TN and had to catch a ride into town. He managed to overcome the rain and adversity and finished the whole trip, but, I gathered from his series that 2003 was a wet year indeed. He "dampened" my thoughts of ever attempting a thru hike. Maybe if the Farmer's Almanac could predict the weather for a AT thru hike I might change my mind. 2 days of rain is about the most I can tolerate. It would even make the trip memorable, but, 30 days?
I think some of us count rain days differently. I hiked in 2000 and shared trail with both Howie and Profile but don't recall hiking in 30 consecutive days or even 21 consecutive days of rain. For the most part I hit towns every few days and took a zero in most of them. I don't recall leaving a town in the rain or with wet gear (I may have and just don't remember but if I did it wasn't often) and I took a few consecutive zero days because of storms (I remember waiting out storms in Fontana Village, Gatlingburg and Damascus, all of which I had a great time in). I also didn't particularly get rained on every time it rained when I was on the trail... sometimes it would start raining late in the day after I made it to a shelter or it only rained during the night or I was able to wait it out during the day in a shelter-- I personally didn't consider that as a rain day as far as hiking in it goes. Now I did get caught a few times where I did get rained on practically all day long for a few consecutive days. It suxed and I agree with L.Wolf, I wouldn't have done it day after day in the rain. Personally I would have found something else to do.
Overall 2000 seemed like a dry year to me. We used water left in milk jugs or had to sometimes stop at houses and ask for water in PA(?). Now, I did get caught in at least one flash flood that made small streams raging white water, knock you on your arse type rivers that seemed very dangerous to deal with. But I used a map, took a dirt road into a nice little town, had a great meal on their patio and then found me a room for the night... just a new adventure to me. Some of the fords in Maine were doable without getting my feet wet and most only required getting wet up to my ankles, but I saw many of the cables and ropes that are needed when the water is really raging.
Last edited by Youngblood; 12-15-2005 at 10:24.
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