Waterbed for the Backcountry

Our tent became a waterbed this morning. Lake Superior carried rain and the boom of thunder for many hours until Andrew finally sat up at about 6:00am and realized our tent was suspended in a 3 inch pool of water! We unzipped the flap and saw our boots and backpacks floating past!! The night before we had found a nice big hemlock to pitch the tent under, but had managed to put it in the only spot beneath the tree without good drainage. So, what left to do? "WE'VE GOT TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE" (The nice version of what Andy said when he realized our predicament.)

We carefully stepped out of the tent, rain still pouring, picked our home by the poles (with everything still in it) and walked it to the other side of the tree. Whew, it was going to be a long day, we had 8 miles to walk too. Luckily we were able to get back in the tent and find a couple inches of dry space where we hung out for a couple of hours, cramped, but moderately dry until it stopped raining.

Andy was a real sport to walk in the lead, which is usually my job, so that he could take the bulk of the water hits from the ferns onto his boots, instead of mine:) The most amazing thing that happened on the trail were two owls about the size of Andy's hands flew into a aspen branch directly over us about 5 feet away. They cocked their heads 180 degrees and stared at us as if they were looking into our souls.

The sun finally came out in the late afternoon and a lucky breeze kicked up before dusk! So thankful for a dry night.