19 Comments
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Sarah Kelsey's avatar

Beautiful photos!

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Hannah's avatar

The pictures look absolutely amazing! But yes, wet tents are no fun... I hope you have more luck this year :) I haven't had any terrible rain adventures lately - the tent usually had dried when I needed to pack up. During one of my trips last year, the most annoying effect of the rain was the slugs - they seemed to love the wet weather and appeared in huge numbers, crawling all over my tent, into my shoes, into my food, everywhere...

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Alice Weinert's avatar

Oh, no! Waking up to slugs covering my tent would be a nightmare. Now THAT would make it hard to pack your tent up in the morning!

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Hannah's avatar

Well, I became very fast at picking them up... But cleaning the slime trails off the tent at home is more work than one would expect!

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James Freitas's avatar

Beautiful photos—glad you were able to cope with wet and rain to capture them!

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Jennifer Uehlein Reynolds's avatar

I have backpacked the length of Pictured Rocks three times now, and some times it's been fabulous and other times it's been a suffer-fest. You capture both the beauty and the struggles fabulously.

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Alice Weinert's avatar

If I was going to get rain, at least it was at night! For all my complaints, it was better than hiking all day in the rain!

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Tiffany Cartwright's avatar

Packing a wet tent is the WORST. What a beautiful trip, though!

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Alice Weinert's avatar

I’m glad that I’m not the only one who dislikes a wet tent! Luckily the days during that trip were beautiful and made up for it!

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Christine Finlayson's avatar

What gorgeous scenery and photos! My family camped in Northwest rainforests when I was young, so I always thought of camping as a soggy/rainy activity. I was surprised--and pleased--when I began camping in the summertime as an adult. What a great idea to bring an absorbent towel for the tent.

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Alice Weinert's avatar

The foggy PNW forests always look gorgeous in photos, but I can imagine that the constant dampness gets rather tiresome on camping trips!

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Christine Finlayson's avatar

Beautiful but... some areas of the Olympic Peninsula can get 100-170 inches of rain a year. Nice and mossy, though!

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Becky Burton's avatar

Amazing photos!

Packing a wet tent is almost the worst, next to having to set up your tent in the rain. My two most recent packs have had a big stretchy pocket in the back, where I can shove a soggy tent.

I agree that being able to do SOMETHING helps, but am too lazy to carry a dedicated cloth. I just use my bandana. Most of my backpacking is in the Sierra where humidity is so low that things dry pretty well.

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Alice Weinert's avatar

The tent I use now for backpacking is smaller and better suited for being shoved in an exterior pocket! And I have designated a side pocket for wet things in my pack--usually my raincoat and camp flip flops live there--so I'm no longer worried about dripping water on my stove and dry socks!

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Jill Hinton Wolfe's avatar

This sounds like 1/3 of the camping trips I’ve had on Michigan’s Manistee River Loop! But it sounds like you did end up considering it Type II fun??

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Alice Weinert's avatar

I would brave all that rain again just for another night at the Beaver Creek campsite! It's a truly stunning area!

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Jill Hinton Wolfe's avatar

My husband & stepson hiked it last fall. It’s a classic in Michigan!!

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Neil Sagebiel's avatar

The wetness is surely no fun at all, but this warm and dry reader must add that your photos are breathtaking. Thanks for taking us along.

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Alice Weinert's avatar

The photos are a good reminder to myself that I actually got really lucky with the weather during the day, even though it felt like I was constantly wet!

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