The Overland Track Chronicles Part Five: Day Three

I awoke the next morning to the heaviest rain we'd had the whole hike. All but three were continuing on with the 18km day ahead of them. They didn't have the luxury of waiting out the downpour. Nobody was burning to go out there.

I bid them all farewell and had a relaxing warm breakfast with Brian the 72-year-old I'd met a couple days prior and another older bloke who was walking the opposite direction. He had walked the trail twelve times already in his life.

"So, do you normally go during this time of year?"

"Oh yeah," He said. "This is the best time to go; nobody's on the trail."

"So, is the weather typically this bad?"I asked.

"Oh god no! No. Nah, it's usually much much worse than this, this time of year. Nah. Normally we'd have had some snow."

It scared me to think that the conditions tossed at me thus far were actually a blessing. The faces of all those people I excitedly told my hiking plans suddenly made sense. The horror, shock, or sympathy, all didn't seem so extreme anymore. Brian was also knocked down by the hiker's news. The previous night, Brian had slept in a tent in the rain, instead of the hut. Everything he owned, including sleeping back was soaked. His body was not forgiving him for the prior two days' punishment. He was cramping, worn-down, cold. Instead of pushing on that day, he decided to rest another day. This was an option I chose to wave, despite the inconceivably worse weather that day. Since I was not going forward, I wanted to head back and see all the various side trails along the way I had passed up. One of the beauties of the Overland Track is the myriad of summit climbs, lake tracks, and other extra bits to help make everyone's experience a little different. To do them all, it would take weeks.

I left the hut around nine, during a semi-dry spell. I even had the bravery to take out my camera for some photos of Windermere Lake. It was another short day, so I decided to walk the extra kilometer to Lake Will. These plans were all until the continuous two-and-a-half hour downpour that hit without warning. The rain was accompanied by even stronger winds than I'd seen the previous two days. By the time I reached the trail to Lake Will, I was determined to get back to Waterfall Valley as quickly as possible.

Despite even worse weather, the walk back was much more pleasant without the dread of knowing I had to walk 25km in a day. The fog was clearer and I was able to see a bit more of the countryside. It was almost a completely different walk. It was still a head-down ordeal; the first landmark I recognized was the hole in the chicken wire gripping upon the boardwalk.

The rain saturated my boots so much, I didn't even hesitate walking through the even deeper creeks that gave me such anger the previous days. The view from the bluff above the Waterfall Valley was stunning. I was blessed with about one minute of no rain, so I was able to snap another quick photo.

I arrived back at Waterfall Valley hut slightly after noon. Within an hour, the weather turned even worse, with the rain and wind getting continuously stronger throughout the afternoon until that evening's blizzard.

My feet were so cold that night, I started experimenting with various numbers and configurations of socks. In the process, I stumbled across the Sock Paradox©: any pair of socks over two makes your feet colder, because lack of circulation causes the feet to sweat, thus making the socks damp and more cold eventually. I worked through the physics of this until I fell asleep.

I awoke in the middle of the night with the startling discovery that the Socks Paradox was in fact a myth. Once I donned my fifth pair of socks, wrapped my feet in a sweater, put the bottom of my sleeping bag in a canvas shopping bag, I was able to make my feet merely cold. It was a long, blustery night. The pummeling wind tested the structural integrity of the cabin.