Day 12 of Vancouver Exchange - Sunday August 22, 2010.... Expedition Day 3

I had awoken the whole night to the sound of falling rain. When I opened my eyes, I felt a water drop fall on my forehead but it was pitch black. I had to flash my flashlight at the top of the tent to find out that the water was leaking in because our fly was open. I found out that the sides of the tent were really wet as well and as I looked further, my sleeping bag was wet as well. I huddled up to stop my sleeping bag from getting more wet. Not only that, it was pretty cold. In Vancouver the weather changes drastically, from 30 something degrees during the afternoon to negative 7 degree at night. It had been raining the whole night and when it was morning, it was still raining. We had to cook in the rain, eat in the rain and walk in the rain. All of us were insanely wet throughout the whole time. For me, I always hated being wet and having to hike in wet clothing just made it worse. I felt cold because the wind was blowing on me, wet and disgusting. My pack was supposedly even heavier because the water gets absorbed in all our equipment which makes my bag even heavier with all the moisture. I was glad go hike though because it took my head out of the gloomy weather and to concentrate on my steps. Since everything was all wet, the chances of slipping were even greater. Although I was a careful hiker, I had slipped a couple of times but it was not severe enough to cause an injury. Some other people were not so lucky.

Apparently today, we had to walk back to our first campsite and hike up a really really tall mountain called "Opal Cone". We had to walk through the patch of snow covered field again. But this time, all our clothes were wet so when the chilly and icy wind blew against us, we were shivering. One of the counselors told us that if someone stopped shivering, he had pneumonia. We would have to set up a tent and have the cold person sleep inside. The rest of us would go inside and huddle against him/her to warm him/her up. Thank god this did not happen because otherwise, we would have to stay in this wretched place longer.
As we got close to Opal Cone, we decided to have a lunch break. It was a short one because its better to keep walking than to stand around. Another team which was ahead of us arrived at Opal Cone but as they were about to head up the mountain, they cheered. Our team wondered why and decided to head up there ourselves. When we got there, the counselor told us that we would not have to go up Opal Cone because it was too foggy. I was so happy because all of us were exhausted and wanted the day to end quickly.

We returned to our campsite with bright faces and slept happily ever after.

This was the first time that we had encountered rain in all of our hikes. In all of our hikes, it was just sunny and had never rained before. I felt that it was a pretty big challenge for all of us and most of all, I felt accomplished that we were able to conquer it.