The Beauty of the Rain

A photo in my bedroom shows me sitting on a rock near Colorado’s Kite Lake, surrounded by thick fog, squishy bowl in hand, with a shit-eating grin on my face. I happened to glance at the picture recently, and was immediately transported back to that exact moment in the Weminuche Wilderness, when I had just taken what turned out to be my very last bite of maple brown sugar instant oatmeal. We were only on day 3 of a 6-day backpacking trip, and I knew at that second I would not be eating any more oatmeal for the rest of the trip. I had just forced the last spoonful of the vile concoction into my mouth when my buddy Dave whipped out his camera and asked me to smile. Thus, a true shit-eating grin was captured, nestled within a magnificent backdrop of fog, forever reminding me of that special moment in time. I almost gag again just looking at the photo.

But it also reminds me of how amazingly different, and surprisingly beautiful, that trip turned out to be.  We loaded ourselves and our backpacks onto the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Train, and followed the tracks along the Animas River to our trailhead at Elk Park. When we reached our destination, the conductor stopped barely long enough for the attendants to throw us and our packs off the train, before it continued down the tracks.  I felt an overwhelming sense of abandonment as I watched the caboose disappear around the bend. Thus began our unexpected adventure.

 The next six days would produce more rain than all of my other backpacking trips combined. I would discover that my tent floor was no longer waterproof, my rain jacket and pants were no longer waterproof, and my boots were no longer waterproof. I would learn to be thankful for leaky shacks that provided at least a little respite from a downpour. I would learn to be thankful for brief periods of no rain that allowed us to set up and take down our tents. I would learn why it’s called the “monsoon season”, even though the Weminuche Wilderness is nowhere near India or Asia.

I would also have the privilege to experience the beauty of the mountains as never before. We hiked under stormy skies where mountain slopes and peaks vanished and reappeared as clouds rolled through the passes. 

We hiked above valleys blanketed in thick whiteness, puffy as a king-sized down comforter. 

We hiked through clouds that billowed behind us like jet contrails and gawked as the darkening skies cast eerie shadows on alpine lakes. And the fog at Kite Lake? Carl Sandburg writes of fog coming in on “little cat feet.” The Weminuche fog stampeded through the valley like a herd of bison, consuming the lake and hillsides completely in a matter of minutes.

We were miserable. We were amazed. We were so blessed.

And now, when that photo of the foggy breakfast at Kite Lake catches my eye, it reminds me not only of how hard it was to swallow that last bite of oatmeal, but how incredible the mountains were during that week of rain. We often hope for sunny skies and perfect temperatures on our outdoor adventures. But there’s something special about the beauty of the rain.