Sure enough, I wake around what a groggy look at my clock says is 2am, and it’s raining, though I’m still warm and dry. It’s raining when I wake again at 1am, and at actual 2am, and again when my alarm buzzes in my sleeping bag at 5:15am¹. I listen to the rain for 15 minutes before I decide that its steady, soothing pace means it isn’t going to let up anytime soon. I look around, take stock of everything, but it seems something’s missing – oh. oh no. I did not do my idiot check last night as well as I had hoped. I peek under the vestibule, and yep, sure enough, there are my shoes and socks, sitting out in the rain, like they have been all night. Ehhhhhhhhh.

So, sighing, I pack up inside and bundle up against the cold and stuff my feet into wet shoes before dashing outside to take down my tent. It’s a Sisyphean effort to get it completely packed without getting any water inside, so I put it away on the outside of my trash compactor bag, to keep the dry stuff and the wet stuff separate. Then it’s oh-god-get-out-of-camp-or-I-might-freeze, ten miles to the Desert View Picnic Area and Mount Laguna.

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