If you want to guarantee that you’ll get rained on, forget your tent’s rainfly. I believe in providence; not luck or coincidence or karma or Murphy’s law. The handful of times I have neglected to ensure that I’m completely protected from precipitation are, in fact, the nights when the heavens have opened up.
Waking up to the sensation of a flooded sleeping bag makes for a good story. Even if the protagonist/victim simply cuts and runs, this kind of disaster-comedy is something most people can get behind. When the inevitably futile, yet herculean efforts to mitigate the situation result in failure? Gold.
And I have one such story to share.
Work or school or both kept us from leaving at a reasonable hour. We were perusing the independent small-town grocery store for hot dogs, buns, and condiments at the time we should have been letting digestion lull us to sleep. A call ahead to the hyperbolically grumpy proprietor of the campground guaranteed that we could just roll up to our spot and set up. He wasn’t happy about it, but he was letting us do it.
The campsite was bordered by a wonderful trout stream. It was managed under strict catch-and-release, fly fishing only regulations. Stocked rainbows added some variety to the wild browns and native brook trout. With a short walk upstream from the campground, an angler could fish steep plunge pools, long runs, or choppy pocket water. Experienced anglers were challenged, but neophytes could find approachable opportunities. Your day might yield one 18-inch holdover or a dozen modest-sized but colorful stream bred trout. Our design was to do all of that, starting the next morning.
The discovery of the missing rainfly came in the midst of a flurry of activity that was primarily focused upon producing a fire capable of cooking cheap hot dogs up to an acceptable char. Food, water, and shelter are prioritized in that precise order when one is hungry.
Settling into the uncovered tent for the night was initially quite pleasant. The proximity to the stream provided a symphony of sounds that could cure the most afflicted insomniac. That water was good. That water wasn’t a problem.
The first raindrops to stir us from sleep must have fallen just before 11:30. I can say that, because the woods won around midnight when we finally retreated to the pickup and I saw the dashboard clock. Over the course of that half hour, the attempts to salvage a night of sleeping on the ground were various, sundry, and vain.
The first logical maneuver was to relocate from the center of the tent to the edges. The mesh of the pinnacle transitioned to nylon. Logic, or woken up wet logic anyway, dictated that would be sufficient cover. That breed of logic neglected to take into account the transfer of moisture between saturated fabrics and the pooling of water that had been occurring for some time. That latter aspect should have been the obvious death knell for our venture. But it was the middle of the night, and we weren’t about to let the obvious stop us.
Unstaking the tent so that it could be dragged under a tree was the next exercise. It made sense. But like in a cartoon where a little raincloud follows the tragic dupe, it felt like more water was breaching the hull near the large pine. A flash of genius allowed me to bestow the next attempt at reclaiming the night. Trash bags split open, crimped onto the tent fabric, using split shot. It all made so much sense. All theories initially make sense. It is only when we verbalize them or try to crimp them onto a wet tent in the middle of the night with split shot that we realize how stupid they are. Or, we are.
The next morning the rain had stopped. Bluebird skies betrayed the steady deluge of the night before and the swamped campsite. We recovered all of our belongings. The anticipation of resetting camp in the backyard simply for the purpose of drying out all of the gear was unpleasant. We then got to fishing. Trout came to hand that day, perhaps spurred on by an infusion of water from the previous evening.
It was the previous evening, at around midnight, that we were in the cab of the pickup. Headlights illuminating the caddywompus tent with trash bags recklessly dangling from it like depressing prayer flags. If we had any initiative to muster up the energy to go another round, the dryness of the vehicle sapped it from us completely. We drove home. Camping was a literal and figurative washout.
To be fair, I can’t recall any of the fish I caught that next day with any sort of specificity. I do remember waking up, though. I recall fighting against the undefeated elements for thirty long, wet minutes.