The map had lied — there were, in fact, no refreshing creeks on our climb — and now we stood at our drunkenly scenic high-mountain campsite without a drop of water. My Dad and I are pretty big fans of water, especially after turning into giant raisins after sweating out 20 gallons of the stuff while pedaling our bikes up mountainsides in 95° heat. In our subsequent dehydrated quest for liquid gold we had a face-off with a porcupine, got pinned by a biblical thunderstorm, and then, miraculously, found a crystalline mountain spring deep in mountainside forest.Upon triumphantly returning to camp, a thick, fast-moving cloud swept up from the valley below and engulfed our campsite. "This definitely doesn't have any rain in it," I announced, confident, as always, in my astute meteorological forecasting abilities. In fact, for years my backcountry partners have been able to predict the weather with uncanny accuracy based solely on my forecasts — they simply take whatever I say and expect the exact opposite.
Minutes later, the clouds opened and the rain began.
Posts
