Yeah, sleeping under the stars was my plan. I was just hoping that it wouldn't be stars with six sides. When I went to bed it was a beautiful night. There were mostly cloudy skies with the moon making occasional appearances. There wasn't a breath of wind and I was comfortably tucked into my sleeping bag without having it completely zipped up. I had all my damp cloths laid out over my backpack and tripod. Experience has taught me to tie light items down, regardless of what the weather may be so I put large rocks in my ground cloth loops to hold the corners down if the wind picked up. I woke up as it was starting to get light and checked my watch just before 6 am. It was a beautiful morning without any wind but I could tell something was coming. I fell back to sleep but woke up at 6:15 to wind, and a lot of it. I quickly stuffed my gear into my pack, stuffed socks into the top of my boots and lumped all my gear together. Within a few minutes it started snowing and blowing harder and harder. I went back to sleep. Photo courtesy of Hombi.
Hombi came by to visit at about 9 am. His visit was initially out of concern. He said that when he saw the sleeping bag out on the gravel bar he was quite concerned. The closer he got, the worse it looked. It wasn't until he heard my cheerful greeting that he knew I was alright. I was still very comfortable but I figured I would have to get up. The little bit of snow visible on the top of my hat was all that was accessible to the storm when I had my sleeping bag drawn shut. Note the snow that is drifted into my boots. Boy, was I happy that I thought about stuffing socks into the top of them. This photo is courtesy of Hombi.
The photographer at work (Hombi). That was shortly after I forced myself to get out of bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment