September 26, 2021
Day 118: Harrington to Schoodic Beach Donnell Lake
Rain on the Down East Sunrise Trail
“I’m going to stop to take my rain jacket off,” Patrick says. We cycle on. “I’m going to put my rain jacket on,” Rachel says. We cycle on. And this continues the cycle of jackets on and jackets off until about 6 miles from our destination and the rain came pouring down. We both keep our jackets on, our heads down and cycle on through the puddles.
The weather forecast had called for rain all night and most of this morning, but when we wake at about 7:30 it is dry and there is even some sunshine. We take our time to pack our gear and enjoy coffee and breakfast with Richard and Susan. No need to hurry today, we are not going far. It is always hard to leave a nice resting place like this, but we have met some very nice people and visited an awesome place. Hopefully some day we will be back here or they will visit us in Boise.
We ride back to route 1A and then take a short cut road up to route 1 where we pick up the Down East Sunrise trail again. The surface is very good, but there are lots of puddles from the rain yesterday. We ride to Cherryfield where we stop at the store to pick up some coke for this afternoon. On the other side of town is a café, but it is only 9:30 and they don’t open until 11. What kind of a café is this?
The weather does not hold. First it starts to sprinkle off and on, then some heavier rain, then a full-on downpour that does not relent. The tracks on the trail fill up with water and our feet get soaked. Nothing to do but to keep pedaling. After about 19 miles we turn off the trail, first up a steel hill, then following a forest road to the Schoodic Beach trailhead. The rain is pouring down. There is a half mile muddy trail through the forest down to Donnell Lake. It is beautiful, but very wet. When we get to the beach we see a nice lake with an awesome beach and several picnic tables and campsites spread along the southern shore.
As long as we were riding we were able to keep warm, but when we stop we immediately feel the wet clothes draining the warmth away. It still rains pretty good, but we have to put up our shelter so we can get in and into dry clothes. The tent we have requires the inner-tent to be pitched first and then the rainfly stretched over it. Most tents work this way. This means the inner-tent gets wet while pitching in the rain. We miss our Hilleberg tent that is the opposite, pitching the rainfly first and being able to set up and take down keeping everything dry. We work fast placing the ground sheet, then the tent and throw the rainfly over the tent while we place the poles. After set up, Rachel gets in to wipe up any moisture on the tent floor. We did pretty good at keeping the inside dry. It takes a while, but half an hour later we are both changed in warm dry clothes and are enjoying salami, cheese, crackers and red wine for lunch inside the tent.
By about 2:00 pm the rain stops and for a little while there is even some sunshine and we look around the lake shore. We dry things as good as we can and get organized inside the tent. Tonight we will be eating our “emergency meal” that we have been carrying for many weeks. This might be the last wild-camp night so good timing to lighten our load.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria_var._guessowii
3 years ago
Today's ride: 23 miles (37 km)
Total: 4,549 miles (7,321 km)
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