Saturday December 17, 0.5km/0.3mi

Triabunna Ferry Terminal (0.0/2m) to Darlington Campground (0.5/10m) (TAS)

I tried to sleep in, figuring the extra rest would help me feel better. It kinda worked, and at 10am I made the short drive down to Triabunna. It was way too early for the 11:30am ferry, but it gave me time to refuel the car and get my campsite sorted and paid. It wasn’t quite the warm sunny day that was promised, so I waited in the warm car until the last minute.

The ferry showed up a few minutes early, I think it makes 4 trips a day back and forth to the island.

Everyone was boarded within 10 minutes, and it was only like a quarter full inside.

There was also an upper deck that is outside, but I went up there for only a minute, since it was cold and windy.

The ferry ride took like 30 minutes, and we were dropped off at the Darlington jetty on Maria Island. I think these towers were old concrete plants.

I walked by the little Darlington Beach, which wasn’t inviting me for a swim on such a cold day.

This grove of ancient and massive trees was a nice entrance gateway to the Darlington village.

For much of its history, Maria Island was a penitentiary settlement. There were a dozen old buildings to visit, each with an interpretive sign or display. I investigated a mill, a cafeteria, the Warden’s residence, a medical ward, and some old dormitory housing.

One of the displays had a cool 3D map, which are usually my favorite things. And this map had an Isthmus, which is my favorite land feature! It’s also just a fun word to say.

One of the old buildings had been modernized inside to be a working kitchen and dining area. It had gas stoves and sinks and counters, pretty basic. But it was warm-ish and windless inside, so I spent a couple hours in there eating a late lunch of soup and cookies.

I kept hearing these weird noises outside that sounded like a pig grunting. I went to investigate…and it’s a bird! A Cape Barren Goose, to be precise.

The Wombats on the island are smaller than the mainland ones, but also less shy too. They had no concerns about me standing only 2m away as they munched on grass.

I setup my tent in the designated camping area, there aren’t assigned spots here. I made dinner in the dining building, and afterwards returned to the campground to get ready for bed. I heard waves crashing as the tide was getting higher, and I was surprised to see the ocean so close! It was less than a 1 minute walk thru some tall bushes.

I had been taking medication all day and resting, and finally starting to feel a little better. Tomorrow morning I’ll take the short beachwalk over to Painted Rocks, and then do a longer hike up to the summit of Bishop & Clerk. I plan to be finished by 1:30pm, since I’m on the 2:30 ferry back to Triabunna.

Friday December 16, 4.3km/2.7mi

Richea Creek Trailhead (0.0/570m) to Gordon River (2.15/460m) to Richea Creek Trailhead (0.0/570m) (TAS)

I had camped right next to the parking lot. Usually I would never camp close to a road, but given that it took me an hour of slow driving on a mediocre dirt road to get here, I wasn’t worried about unsavory humans randomly showing up. I packed all my camping stuff back in the car, as I had planned this hike as a long dayhikes, as it’s 32km out & back to Lake Rhona. I signed into the trail register and hiked out with a delightfully lightweight pack.

I walked for 40 minutes on a pretty nice trail, with hardly any mud or brush.

I’m always so entertained by these logs. I appreciate the effort of the PWS (parks and Wildlife Service), but it’s so much easier to just cut thru the log and remove the whole section. Easier for hikers, too.

After about 2km and 30 minutes of hiking, I arrived to the Gordon River crossing. The guidebook warns that it doesn’t have a bridge, just a massive fallen log to walk on. Unfortunately, the log was partially submerged by the flooded river, making this crossing impossible.

A flooded Gordon River.

I hiked upstream and downstream along the banks and found two other possible logs to cross on, but both of these were submerged too. Bummer.

Even if I found a way across now, I wasn’t sure the river wouldn’t be even higher this afternoon when I would be re-crossing it. And then I would be stuck, as there are no other trails out here. So, I hiked the short distance back to the car. I kept pondering how strange it was that there was no bridge, since the Gordon River is Tasmania’s largest river by volume. And plenty of other more remote trails have had bridges, over smaller rivers than this one. I got in the car and reversed my driving route down the narrow dirt roads.

After an hour of driving down dirt roads, I was back in the tiny town of Maydena. I now had the whole day to entertain myself, and I was looking up information on nearby Mt Anne, I began to feel terribly sick and flu-ish. So the rest of my day was instead focused on medicating myself enough to be capable of driving to my planned destination for tomorrow, Triabunna. After a few rounds of medications, I drove the 2.5 hours to Triabunna, and then to a nearby free car campground at Mayfield Bay. It was a nice spot on the ocean, but it was hard to appreciate in my current state of illness.

Tomorrow I will take an 11:30am ferry from Triabunna to Maria Island, which is supposed to be a very relaxing place, and a great spot to see Tasmanian Devils!

Thursday December 15, 14.1km/8.8mi

Dixons Kingdom Campsite (20.0/1260m) to Fish River Carpark (34.1/690m) (TAS)

I awoke to a tent covered in a dusting of snow, and the hillsides covered in fog. A very different world than last night!

It took me awhile to pack up, as the frigid temperatures (-1C) were predictably causing limited dexterity in my hands. Eventually by 6:45am I was hiking and on my way to getting warm. Lake Ball coming into view:

There was also a Lake Ball Hut, which was a surprise to me. It’s another old historical hut built by fur trappers.

It’s not really ideal for sleeping inside, but if the weather was truly terrible it would make a decent refuge.

More views of Ball Lake:

Most of the hiking today looked like this. This half of the loop is much less scenic than yesterday, but it had its own quiet beauty.

Lake Adelaide coming into view:

Lake Adelaide is huge, and it had a trail junction near here. That trail connects to the Overland Track, albeit with some light bushwhacking involved. It was my original plan to connect to Walls of Jerusalem from the Overland Track via this trail, but I had found out the valley was flooded so I changed plans.

This half of the Jerusalem loop was definitely less maintained, but it did have some nice sections of trail near the Lake Adelaide campsite.

The cloud ceiling was starting to lift!

The final lake on the circuit was Lake Loane, and it looked rather swampy.

A few minutes later, I reconnected to my trail from yesterday, closing the loop. I was near the Trapper’s Hut, so I still had about 2km to go. After an easy 40 minutes of downhill hiking, I was back at the car. It was much warmer now at 11am, but I still started up the car’s heater right away…I had gear to dry out!

After exploding my backpack contents all over every surface in the car, the drying process had started! Weirdly, I had a flat tire, which I had to deal with before I could leave. The damage is covered by my rental contract, but I still needed a working car. A nice couple in the parking lot loaned me their air pump, which I used to restore the tire, only to watch the gage drop from 35psi to 25 pretty quickly. Bummer. I pulled the spare out of the trunk and installed it, finally leaving the trailhead at noon. I drove the 5.5 hours to my next hike, Lake Rhona. Except the last bit didn’t go as planned. The last hour is on forestry roads, and this one road happened to be closed.

I had to take the only other access road to Lake Rhona, which meant backtracking an hour, taking paved roads around to the other side of the forest, and entering from that side. Another 2.5 hours of driving, yuck. I finally arrived at the Lake Rhona trailhead at 9pm, just as all the nocturnal critters start suicidally crossing the roads. Long day!

Wednesday December 14, 17.7km/11.0mi

Trappers Hut (2.3/1060m) to Dixons Kingdom Campsite (20.0/1260m) (TAS)

It must’ve rained a little overnight, as the outside of my tent was wet. After I packed up, I wandered over to the ancient little hut to have a look inside…but there were two people sleeping in there! Gross. It was also full of spiders, dirt, and at least one mouse. Trapper’s hut:

There was a big sign welcoming hikers to the national park, which I had missed last night in the waning daylight.

As I hiked uphill, I warmed up rapidly, and the sun came out and helped too. It was probably only 6C outside.

The trail had climbed 500m/1600ft from the trailhead, and I had finally reached the top of the climb to the plateau. There were little lakes everywhere, I think these lakes were called Solomon’s Jewels.

I could see King David’s Peak getting closer as the morning went on. It’s one if the sidetrip options for this hike.

The peak was getting closer still…and the trail was a pleasure to hike with all the boardwalks.

There wasn’t much vegetation up high at 1200m, so the scenery was visible in every direction.

Looking behind me, to where I was this morning.

This little pass was called Herod’s Gate, which was the entry point to the main valley in Walls of Jerusalem.

There were clouds all day, but it was trying to be nice weather.

There were a ton of these big green hemispheres of green moss, or some type of moisture-loving plant. Apparently they are easily damaged and take forever to regrow, so the boardwalks help keep people from trampling them.

Looking ahead to The Temple (L) and Solomon’s Throne (R), with Damascus Gate in the middle.

Getting closer …

These trees are a special type of pine that seems to like to grow at high elevations, where no other trees will grow.

There was a very short side hike to Solomons Pools, it was a nice little spot with lots of noisy frogs.

It did have a nice reflection of the mountains behind it too.

I hiked the 100m back to the main trail and passed thru even more of these little groves of pines.

From the top of the Damascus Gate pass, I could see the whole valley behind me. I had just hiked thru all of that. King David’s Peak is on the left.

At the pass, there is a 4-way junction to Solomon’s Throne, and The Temple. Normally I would’ve hiked these both as I hiked by, but I wanted to hike Mt Jerusalem first, while the weather was still good. Instead, I descended the other side of the pass, towards Dixon’s Kingdom Hut and Mt Jerusalem.

At one point, the trail took an abrupt right turn, onto what was clearly brand-new trail.

I was able to get an up-close look at those pine trees. Interesting needles!

I passed by a brand-new Dixons Kingdom campsite, complete with tent platforms and toilets. But I kept going to the old Dixons Kingdom Hut, since I wanted shelter from the incessant wind.

The hut was nice insit, and I ate my lunch while relaxing on the big bench seat. As I was finishing lunch, I heard a loud tapping noise on the roof. Sleet! I waited an hour in the dry hut for that wave of storm clouds to pass thru, good timing!

By 2pm, the mixed precipitation had stopped falling, so I ventured out.

The clouds looked like they might keep making hourly appearances, so I hiked quickly towards Mt Jerusalem.

Mt Jerusalem was 2km from the hut, and I covered ground quickly.

About 500m from the summit, the next wave of clouds moved thru, and I had zero visibility for 10 minutes. I hid behind a large boulder, while waiting for the wind and SNOW to stop.

I had gotten pretty cold sitting still for 10 minutes behind that boulder, so it felt good to move again. Sometimes the only way to get warm is to move, or move faster…it worked! The summit had some great views:

Looking to the east:

The very windy and cold summit selfie:

Mt Jerusalem really had a cool perspective on the surrounding area.

Looking back towards King David’s Peak:

I only stayed 5 minutes on the summit, it was windy, and I could see another wave of clouds moving toward me. About halfway back to the hut, I again hid behind a boulder from the passing wave of snow flurries. Crazy! I returned to the hut and had a snack, and put on another warm layer. Continuing on, I headed back to that 4-way junction at Damascus Gate to hike Solomon’s Throne & The Temple. Solomon’s Throne looked forbidding:

I turned onto The Temple first, since it seemed easier. The peak was quite rocky, but the trail builders did a masterful job installing lots of rock stairs.

It was only a 500m hike to the top, and I loved this view to the north, of King David’s Peak.

Much to my surpy, there was a woman from Belgium taking a nap up there! She awoke from my noisy hiking, and took a nice photo of me.

The clouds had started to move in again, so I figured it was time to get one more peak finished while I still could. I sauntered back down to the junction, and kept going up the other side towards Solomon’s Throne.

The cliff seemed impossibly steep, but the trail kept zigzagging towards it.

At one spot, it wrapped around the edge of a talus field.

And the coolest surprise came at the end, when the trail went straight up a rocky gap in the cliff!

From the top, I was enthralled by the view to the west. I could see all the peaks along the Overland Track, where I had been two weeks before. Cradle Mountain, Barn Bluff, Mt Ossa, and more.

Some hikers continue another 2km along the ridge to King David’s Peak, which would add another 2 hours to my day.

It was tempting, but I noticed it was already 6pm and another wave of clouds was approaching in the distance (they seemed to be about an hour apart). I happily hiked back the way I came, and then turned off at the junction to the campsite.

These little guys were all over the campsite. I’m not sure if they’re Wallabies or Pademelons.

I setup my tent on one of the nice new platforms, and because it was so windy, I boiled my dinner behind the bathrooms, haha! As I crawled into my sleeping bag, I noticed on my little thermometer that it had already dropped to 5C…it will surely get to 0C tonight. So I pulled my water filter off its bottle, and put it inside the sleeping bag with me so it doesn’t freeze. It’s supposed to be summer here!

Tuesday December 13, 2.3km/1.4mi

Fish River Carpark (0.0/690m) to Trappers Hut (2.3/1060m) (TAS)

It was a 4 hour drive to the trailhead, mostly heading north, and then a little west. I had heard from a few locals that the best place to see a platypus was in a small creek behind the Mole Creek Hotel & bar. Mole Creek isn’t convenient to get to, but it was actually on my way to Walls of Jerusalem National Park! After 3 hours of driving, I stopped in for an early dinner.
Their kitchen didn’t open until 5pm, so I killed time looking for a platypus in the creek. I spent 30 minutes looking, but I only found a confused bird, who was squawking at a rock. No platypuses (platypii?), darn.

Dinner was a delicious pulled pork sandwich and chips, and I was thoroughly entertained by the bartender who was explaining all the different Australian words for beer and drinking culture. I drove the last hour to the trailhead, which had a fancy little shed for the trail sign-in register.

I could easily do this loop hike in just 2 days, but I wanted to hike a little and didn’t feel like camping at the carpark. The trail climbed steadily for 2km, thru a tall forest.

After 45 minutes, I reached a clear area near Trappers Hut, an old disused shelter. I was in my sleeping bag within 20 minutes, since I didn’t have any cooking/cleaning chores to do, and because it was a cold 6C outside.

Monday December 12, 0km/0mi

Hobart (10m) (TAS)

I had booked a room at the Central Hotel for 2 nights, so I didn’t have to go anywhere today. It was great! It’s on Collins Street, one of the main routes in Hobart’s CBD, so I didn’t have to walk far to anything. Including donuts! I tried “Circle of Life” which had all sorts of crazy flavors. I got a standard cinnamon donut and a timtam crumb donut, and my blood sugar rose in anticipation.

I went back to the hotel room and checked out the local TV channels.
There was a reality show about duplicating a popular Australian candy called Snakes Alive, and a backyard barbecue version of Top Chef, haha. I tried something new for lunch, Malaysian food. I noticed that Australia generally has many options for southeast Asia cuisine, something generally lacking in the US.

On the walk back, I thought my feet felt cold. Upon closer inspection, my shoes were falling apart! It wasn’t surprising, since I usually get 100km/650mi out of a pair of shoes, and it has been almost 1500km. C’mon shoes, just one more week to go!

I did some makeshift repairs with a sewing kit from the hotel reception desk, and a 2-part epoxy I bought at a hardware store. Tomorrow morning I will head to wherever the weather looks driest – which is currently the Walls of Jerusalem National Park. Weather is Tasmania is so wet and chilly!

Sunday December 11, 6.2km/3.9mi

Twilight Tarn Campsite (21.7/990m) to Lake Dobson Carpark (27.9/1030m) (TAS)

I had a great night of sleep at my little camp spot. As I hiked out at 7:30am, I could hear the other campers complaining about mice, a good reason to avoid the old huts! The track was very nice, with lots of bridges and boardwalks across the wet spots.

Despite the afternoon forecast for heavy rain, the morning was delightfully sunny.

It was a short walk to complete the Tarn Shelf Loop, only two hours back to my car. As I got closer to the trailhead, I kept seeing Pademelons hop away as I approached. Finally I was able to get a photo of one, when it stood still for a few seconds. I think this one also had a baby in her pouch (they are marsupials).

Yesterday was all in the alpine, but today was at lower elevations and everything was so green!

When I got back to Lake Dobson, I knew I was basically finished.

I was back at the car at 9:30am, and drove the 30 minutes back to the Park visitor center. There was a gift shop, cafe, ranger station, and a few short dayhikes to waterfalls. I hiked the 15 minutes to Russell Falls, and it was cool seeing so many people out enjoying the morning in the park. At an elevation of only 160m/525ft, the valley felt like a tropical forest.

Russell Falls is the lower of the 2 waterfalls, and much taller.

I hiked 10 minutes up to Horseshoe Falls, which was up a few hundred stairs. It reminded me of the little waterfalls along the PCT in Washington.

On the hike down from Horseshoe Falls, I realized that all the tourists from the lower falls were slowly making their way up here too. It’s so different from US tourists, who are less likely to do “extra” hiking or climb lots of stairs. Cool. Back at the car, I decided to drive across the street to a picnic area by the Tyenna River, to see a platypus. No luck, but I’ll get to see one eventually! I drove the 90 minutes to Hobart, where I have a cheap hotel room booked. It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow, so I’ll get a shower and laundry done, and regroup before my final week in Tasmania. At the Woolworths (grocery store), I was happily surprised to see ice cream sold in slices. Perfect appetizer before dinner!

It felt great to be clean again, and I spent the evening planning my few remaining hikes. Hopefully I can avoid most of the forecasted wet weather.

Saturday December 10, 21.7km/13.5mi

Lake Dobson Carpark (0.0/1030m) to Twilight Tarn Campsite (21.7/990m) (TAS)

I left the campground at 7:30am and stopped by the visitor center to use the wifi, as I had some tasks to complete to return to work next month. After that, I drove the 30 minutes to the Lake Dobson trailhead, where there was only one other car in the parking lot. I chatted with them briefly, they are hiking Mt Field West too.

This is a popular area, and deservedly so, there were so many views of lakes!

Pranksters like to mess with park signs, it seems.

I climbed up for 30 minutes, and there was a lookout with views north over Seal Lake.

These alpine areas are often marshy, so I appreciated the extensive boardwalks to keep my feet dry and protect the plants.

Even the trail junctions were boardwalks, ha!

The hike I am doing combines the Tarn Shelf Loop with an out&back to Mt. Field West. Once I departed the loop and started towards Mt Field, the trail because noticably more rugged and rocky.

There was a little bit of talus -hopping.

And then maximum talus-hopping, with cairns and orange poles to mark the way.

When I came over the ridge, I could see that the clouds were lifting, but were still shrouding the summits a tiny bit. Mt Naturalist was hiding.

The rest of the ridge had this unique mixture of clouds and sunny spots.

As I descended into the col, I could see the Peterson memorial hut up ahead, past the lush green meadows.

A trail junction to “The Watcher”, sounds creepy.

It’s an old A-frame hut, designated as emergency shelter only, no camping inside.

I took a snack break inside and signed the trail register book.

I looked at the map, and saw that it had taken me an hour to go only 3km from the trail junction, because of all the talus. It was another hour to the summit, so I finished eating and hiked on.

Some of the tiny ponds were very still, and kinda looked like infinity pools.

Mt Naturalist is the first summit on the ridge, and Mt Field West is behind it.

There was very little elevation gain on the ridge, it was mostly just rock-hopping and wet marshy walking.

Mt. Field West is 1440m/4725ft high, the highest peak in the National Park. Views in all directions!

Another group was at the summit the same time as me, and we swapped photos. They were doing “the Abels”, a peakbagging list with all the summits in Tasmania higher than 1100m, I think it’s like 155 mountains.

View to the south:

As I hiked back to the hut for lunch, I noticed that several groups had setup their tents *right next to* this beautiful little alpine tarn.

This is why we can’t have nice things. Apparently that is allowed here, but obviously it’s terrible for that environment. Back at the hut, I caught up to the couple from the summit and had lunch together. The rest of the hike back to the main Tarn Shelf Loop was uneventful. Back at the trail junction, Lake Seal and Platypus Tarn were now more clearly visible without the low clouds.

The loop trail is built for heavy use from dayhikers, as I saw plenty of people on the heavily boardwalked trail. There was even an interpretive hut!

The loop trail gets its name from Tarn Shelf, where there are 7 tarns (mountain lakes formed in glacial cirques) in a short distance. Robert Tarn, and Mackenzie Tarn:

Johnston Tarn:

A cool delicately balanced boulder by the tarn.

I liked the little stone pathways thru the water.

I made good time on the boardwalk sections, and because it was later in the day, I had this section all to myself.

Twisted Tarn was oddly named, all the others were named for colonialists.

When I got to the turnoff for Twilight Tarn, I knew I was almost home for the night.

Twilight Tarn:

There was another old hut at Twilight Tarn, which is another historic structure, I don’t think sleeping inside would be allowed or even a good idea.

There were 2 other people camped at Twilight Tarn, I talked to the two women for awhile and they were full of good advice for other hikes to do in Tasmania. I set up my tent nearby on a hill, under some trees.

Tomorrow will be an easy 2 hour hike to complete the loop, hopefully the rain holds off until the afternoon!

Friday December 9, 17.5 km/10.9mi

Junction Creek Campsite (9.3/230m) to Top of Alpha Moraine (13.4/980m) to Scotts Peak Dam Trailhead (0.0/270m) (TAS)

It had rained overnight, so I packed up a wet tent at 7am, hoping to dry it later. I snuck by the group of 7, who were still sleeping. I took the right turn at the junction, to hike the loop counterclockwise. The weather still wasn’t looking great.

I hiked toward Alpha moraine, which the trail uses to climb up onto the ridge of the Western Arthurs. I was already wet from hiking thru an overgrown brushy trail (carwash!), and I kept moving to stay warm.

The clouds weren’t lifting, and in fact it started to rain again.

There was a moment that I thought the sunshine might break out, but that brief hole in the clouds was quickly covered by the incoming clouds.

As I climbed up to the top of Alpha moraine, the temperature expectedly got colder. I had climbed up 600m/2000ft, and it was now just above freezing. Rain at these temperatures, with no place to hide from the wind, is hypothermia conditions.

Unless the rain stopped soon, I would have to turn around. It wasn’t supposed to rain today! I took out my InReach and downloaded an updated forecast, which showed rain all day today, and Sunday too. So my 3-day clear weather window was now only clear Saturday/tomorrow. Yikes. Time to leave. I hiked the 2 hours back to Junction Creek, and then another 2.5 hours back to the car. It was still a muddy trail, but now it was slippery too. I was happy to get back to the car at 3pm and sit with the heat on.
I drove towards town, and passed Scotts Peak Dam along the way, so I had a visit.

Behind the dam is Lake Pedder, part of Tasmania’s hydropower system.

I continued driving, and it was still raining. After 45 minutes on a gravel road, and another 45 on pavement, I pulled into a campground for the night. After dinner that night, I figured out my plans for the next hike. I’m near Mt Field, so I’ll hike that 2-day loop tomorrow and Sunday. After Sunday, the forecast shows rain for 5 days, and snow up in the higher elevations. Sheesh. Where is summer?!

Thursday December 8, 9.3km/5.8mi

Scotts Peak Dam Trailhead (0.0/270m) to Junction Creek Campsite (9.3/230m) (TAS)

It was very windy at the campsite last night, so about 1am I moved into the car. With all the sleep interruptions, I woke up late at 8am. I was planning on starting a Mt Field loop today, which meant a short day, so I watched some TV episodes while lounging in the cozy car. Around 10:30am I packed up and checked the weather forecast one last time. It looked like it had improved, the next 3 days were now mostly dry! Hmm… change of plans. The Western Arthur Traverse requires a window of clear weather for the high, exposed 30km traverse. I decided to go for it, and re-packed my food for a 5-day hike. I stopped at a nearby “roadhouse” (convenience store) for a chicken burger and fries, and then drove the 2 hours to the trailhead. I arrived to Scott’s Peak Dam Trailhead at 3:30pm, and saw one other group there. They were a huge group of 7, so I expected to catch them easily later today. By the time I did some final packing, filled my water, and double-checked my maps and itinerary, it was 4pm.

I signed the trail register, and off I went!

The trail started off very nice, at first in a dense dark forest.

Eventually it emerged into the buttongrass plains, which are the dominant terrain type around here. The pattern of dark clouds and blue sky was captivating, but also confusing.

After a couple kilometers, I could see the mountains I will be traversing (from right to left) for the next few days.

About an hour into the hike, I was surprised to see this warning sign. “If you are not prepared for X, Y, Z….Turn around here!”

The Western Arthurs were coming into view!

The trail then became rather muddy, so I switched to my waterproof socks so I could keep my feet dry. The trail also became slightly overgrown.

This stream crossing amused me. They hauled lumber out here, but instead of building a bridge, they built…stairs down into the stream.

It was at least half a meter deep, so I found a way to cross on some nearby fallen trees that bridged most of the stream. I arrived to the Junction Creek Campsite a few minutes later, and found the large group had spread out their 3 massive tents over the primary camping area. I found a nice cozy spot in the trees like 50m away, perfect. This trail has 8 designated campsites, and most have a toilet and wooden tent platforms. The toilets are just a raised cylinder seat on a storage tank. Haha!

It started to sprinkle, so I made dinner in my tent vestibule under my umbrella. It’s a nice setup that keeps moisture out of the tent and still blocks the rain and wind from the stove. I crawled into bed before 9pm, excited to catch up on sleep tonight!