Kern-Kaweah and Kaweah Basins

Near sunset the sun briefly sneaked beneath the rain clouds to light up the nearby peaks over Colby Lake.

A Wet Colby Lake

Kern-Kaweah and Kaweah Basins via Colby Pass, September, 2000.

At this point it was beginning to rain, not seriously yet, but the intensity was picking up. I continued down the trail, descending the bench into more gardens and groves, searching for Dave. At the last possible campsite and just off the trail I found Dave waiting for me, and after a short discussion and a long look at the socked-in pass, we decided to call it a day and hurriedly began setting up our shelters. It was barely noon but the weather dictated we either climb the fog shrouded pass in raingear, always unpleasant and lacking in views, or wait it out in our dry shelters. I for one actually welcomed the rest. After an energy sapping miserably hot and mostly viewless first few days, the idea of kicking back in the comfort of cool temperatures with a good book had a lot of appeal. Our surroundings were pleasant enough, and anyway I wanted to crest the pass with full views in all directions for my camera. I had no idea of the variety of weather conditions we would be enduring at that lake.
We quickly set up camp, and soon after I was bundled up in my bivy-tent, reading my book, munching my lunch while listening to the rain beating down on the tent fabric around me. Life was good.

Our soggy camp during a lull in the rain.

If I got tired of reading, I could take a nap or look outside at the rain creating its own art on the surface of the lake below us. Gusts of wind would occasionally shake down torrents of raindrops from the trees above us or flap our shelters, but they were rare. The dimming gray light alerted me to the approaching evening, and as the rain eased off, I was forced to emerged from my warm confines to begin the chores of the evening meal. It was decidedly cooler, requiring me to put on all of my warm clothing. If losing a half-day was a bad thing, then the fact my chair ripped and dumping me to the ground was a really bad thing. I knew I should have brought my new chair instead of my oldest one. I had to ditch it somewhere to pick up on the return leg of our journey. I really missed the use of my chair.
Fortunately, I had a small Thermarest pad I always carried to lengthen my full-length pad and it served to provide me with an insulated and comfortable place to sit, though I missed a backrest. We had cut the evening meal a bit close, forcing the final chores of the day to be done in the gloom of dusk, but we still managed some sitting time before the cold and night encouraged a quick retreat to our sleeping bags and books. I fell asleep to the sound of drumming rain.