I hate packing wet, and that night in Indian Gardens, well below the South Rim on Bright Angel Trail, I knew I would be doing just that the following morning. Fortunately, it would only be for the hike out. Unfortunately, the trip out was uphill 3000 feet over 4.5 miles, akin to climbing Hardesty in Oregon or Mt. Wrightston south of Tucson, although on more sandy soil, with mules and people, but no mountain bikes.
My wife and I always stayed in Indian Gardens the last night out on a Canyon backpack. This trip, a cold autumn storm moved in, and our last dinner was eaten under shelter of the eaves of one of the buildings, followed by our quickly retiring to the tent. There were no day hikers in this weather, and I doubted we’d see many on the way out.
I sleep well on a rainy night if I have nowhere to go the next day, but I awoke frequently hearing rain and thought how wet and cold we were going to be. Next morning, we got up and dressed, a real joy when it is dark and raining, trying to keep bare skin away from the tent, packed where we could under the nearby eaves, folded the tent, without my caring how it looked, only that it stay on the pack, headed out and up, wearing layers but not expecting to shed any. The pack the last day was supposed to be light without food and with little water, but it weighed a ton with the wet tent. When I reached the Coconino Sandstone layer, the light brown vertical one, third from the top, the rain switched to snow. I was warm but not excessively so, and kept plodding upward into the Toroweap. Fortunately, our vehicle was parked right at the top of the trail, something one could easily do forty years ago. I reached the top of the trail, Kaibab Limestone, got the keys out, dropped my pack into the trunk…
And was suddenly cold. BRRR. No longer generating heat, I had unevaporated sweat. I knew my wife would be a little while longer, so I immediately headed to a nearby lodge with a fire to stand by it. When I was again warm, I went back out and waited. When she appeared, I took the pack, told her to head to the lodge to get warm, and I would quickly be there.
Packing wet when you aren’t coming out means thinking all day about how you want to get the tent up and have it dry, right now, but you can’t. If it were in the rest of the pack, which for me it often was, then I tried to shield my clothes and sleeping bag from it, not always succeeding. On some multi-day backpacks in Alaska, it would rain for a couple of days straight, the pack was wet, tent wet, and I had one pair of dry socks I saved for night. That meant I put on cold, damp socks in the morning. They were wool; it was bad for only a few minutes.
I finally got it right with the help of a guide when I was on the Noatak River. I put the pack in the tent overnight and in the morning packed everything without leaving the tent. Then I struck the tent, folded it, put it in a stuff sack, and attached it to the outside of my pack. It didn’t matter whether it rained or whether I was crossing water up to my waist. The tent wasn’t going to get any wetter, and it wasn’t going to get the clothes in the pack wet, either.
See you on the trail. Make sure the coming generations know your tricks.
Boreal B[l]og 
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