On August 6th we were hiking the Rough Ridge hike right off the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had found this hike after a while of searching, and we chose right. The hike was medium in difficulty, and had beautiful views that you could enjoy at regular intervals. We had a really great time, and I even convinced Yara to do a little photoshoot at the top of the mountain! However, nobody knew what was going to occur a few hours later back at our campsite.

After the hike we drove back through an absolute downpour (we were in a Prius on mountain roads it was fun). When we got back to the campsite I started preparing the fire, and then Yara came up to me and said there was water in it, but I thought it was no big deal. But after taking a closer look, it turned out water puddles had developed right underneath most of our sleeping bags and backpacks, soaking all of them. Some of us had entire bags of clothes that were ruined, and at first I almost screamed because my laptop and everything I owned was also in a backpack. But luckily it had been warm and dry in the car. At this point it was already late in the day, and it was going to rain or be cloudy the rest of the day, so we decided to just leave. So while Grace and Yara, who were resilient in this stressful situation, packed up the tent and all of its soaked contents, Carolyn Reagan and I prepared dinner. We were lucky enough to be able to go a day early to our next destination! Around 10:30 PM we finished packing the car, ate dinner, and did our last inspections of the campsite.

I am not entirely sure why the tent did not hold water out, but upon researching it I’ve found that as a tent get’s older, dirt, oil and dust can wear away at the waterproof coating, leaving you in our situation. Always test your tents before you go camping, and while I am talking about it, always bring some damn fire starter.

Please enjoy this gallery of images from the incident: