The rain started as soon as I pitched my tarp last night. It was windy too, making me glad I had come down off the top of Orocopia Mountain.
It kept up until well past dawn. Rain in the morning is among a hiker’s worst nightmares, as it means answering the call of nature under very unpleasant conditions. Fortunately I had brought an umbrella to ward off the desert sun, and it turns out that it works to ward off the desert rain as well. Business concluded, I was able to pack up and start walking without getting too wet.
I was fortunate to stop where I did. The next two miles were a series of downclimbs in a narrow rocky canyon with no possible place to pitch a tent. If I had pushed on I would have been scaling down rockfalls in the dark, not exactly a best practice. And in the wet.
Looking down 15 feet of slick dryfall. Not too big a problem when dry, but these can be real widowmakers when wet.
It was slow going even during the day, but after a couple of miles (and hours) the wash opened up and made for easy walking. No harm done, except to my clothes and skin, victims of the abundant catclaws.
My desert nemesis, the catclaw (Acacia gregii). The canyons can be filled with this stuff, and I come out a loser in every encounter.
The storm moved back in as I approached I-10, and I walked up to the coffee shop at Chiriaco Summit draped in my poncho, looking pretty much like a hobo. A wet, smelly hobo.
But they made me welcome there and even pointed out an outlet where I could recharge my phone. I had a chili burger and a couple of beers and then dawdled for an hour hoping for a break in the rain.
One appeared, and I hustled up the jeep trail into Joshua Tree NP where I had cached 8 days of food in a hole dug in the shade of a large ocotillo. Unfortunately it commenced to rain as I got there. I cannot recommend digging out a cache with a small trowel in a rainstorm as a pleasant pastime. But the cache was intact, so I quickly loaded it into my pack and got my poncho back on, a bit damper for the experience.
I walked almost to the no camping zone in JTNP and threw up my tarp in the wind and rain on the sandy alluvial fan. It would be a fine campsite but for the roar of the interstate just a mile away. This will be my second night of rain in a row, not quite what I was expecting. Hoping for a little more sun tomorrow.