Cold and geocaches at Haven Lake on Bike

 

I woke up and remembered it was hiking morning and I just wanted to go back to sleep.  What happened?  I used to be so excited to get up on hiking morning, but I’ve not felt that for a few years now except for when I have a new hike planned.

I think I’m just bored to death of all the local trails.  I’ve done them all dozens of times and they are getting more crowded.

This morning I wanted to go back to Haven Lake to place a geocache, find some geocaches and to look at the old road that runs next to the lake.   

I woke up and looked out the window and saw rain and it made me happy, it meant that I could cancel my hike with no guilt.  I used to hike in the rain all the time though.  

I was not able to fall back to sleep and the sun came out!  I checked the forecast and it said that more rain was likely but only 1/10^th of an inch.  The hike was back on.  

I felt a bit more inspired to hike remembering that I had geocaching missions in mind and that the gate to the evacuation route and or the 800 line is probably due to close on December 31. 

Once those gates are shut I will probably never get to go back to South Mountain or Haven Lake again since I am moving to in the spring.  

So off I went on my bike and with a big heavy geocache in my backpack. 

Soon it started raining, but no worries 1/10^th of an inch is nothing! 

 

Of course the weather guessers were wrong  the rain kept falling harder and harder and being on a bike I was really getting soaked.  Soon the rain drops began to get fat and white, but never quite turned into snow.

I gave up on finding any geocaches, it was too cold and I was not patient enough spend much time looking for them.

I  continued on to Haven Lake to hide my cache and it was just pouring.  It was okay though, I always have a tarp in my backpack these days.  I leave it in all the time no matter what the forecast so I will always have it when it is needed.

I pitched my tarp at the lake shore, started up my stove and hid my geocache.  Then I had a nice hot lunch and hot coffee at the lake under my cuben fiber tarp.

The trip back out was short but cold.  Thanks to my bike I finished my hike well before dark. 

I was home for about 4 hours before I felt warm again.

6.5 miles 600 feet elevation gain