Besides “The Hike is the Destination,” my other tagline should be “Making Mistakes So You Don’t Have To,” or something like that. Everybody knows I’m a huge advocate of checking the weather before you go. I was headed to Emigrant Lake today off of Highway 88, and I did check the weather, but I didn’t realize how bad the wind would be. I got about 100 yards or so on the trail and turned back. “F*ck this, I’m out of here,” I said to myself as my right ear began to ache from the cold when I was on the trail.
The temperature in my truck said it was 33° Fahrenheit when I parked. The high for the day was projected to be 45 degrees, and that’s oaky for me. I don’t like the cold, but I can handle it. But my problem was that I failed to look deeper and see what the wind was doing when I checked the forecast. I opened the door to my truck, and the wind just about blew it closed back on me. It had to be blowing at least 20 mph, and it felt like more as I stepped out. My hat went flying across the parking lot at Caples Lake, and I had to chase that sucker down.
So I geared up anyway, fired up my GPS to log my tracks and climbed up from the parking lot to the trail. It was just a little after 9 a.m., and I was greeted by a couple headed back to the parking lot. They weren’t out there long either. I moved on a little further, stopped and put my gloves on, and then I got behind the cover of some trees that were next to the lake as I hiked along, and that seemed to block the wind a bit. I thought it might get better. Even though my right ear started to ache, I took another few steps where I was exposed to the winds coming off the white-capped lake. I called it right there and turned around.
Lesson – don’t just check the temperatures and what the icons on your weather app say about the day (sunny all day in this case) – check the forecast thoroughly. I ended up watching Netflix for the rest of the day, which is not how I like to spend my days.