While the weather is at least decent on most of my hikes, and probably over half of them has weather close to perfect, there are times when my luck just runs out. Sometimes that means just gloomy and misty weather, which is the best of the bad possibilities, but sometimes it gets to outright rain. If it’s my own plan, then I might just delay it, but if it’s during a longer stay or just an event I signed up beforehand, then I just go and take some shorter route, but go anyway. As we say here, there’s no bad weather, only bad equipment.

In the past years, November was usually safe bet for at least gloomy weather if not rain. Compared to the shining colors of early autumn, it usually gets sad in that one month. It’s probably the reason why I have the least photos made in November.

The last year made a change, and the “wet month” title went to April, even more so on my 27th birthday. What looked like great thing (I really like the idea of going for a hike on my birthday, because to me it’s the best way to spend a day) turned into quite gloomy for start. It was not outright rain, more like very dense mist falling down. Being in a place I knew, I sent most people willing to listen to my advice to use the yellow trail which I knew to be nice, and took the red one myself (I used yellow and blue trail the previous year). In the dense mist, I went alone (hooray!) until I met a local woman that was walking her dog, who had the cool idea to give me a hug. Large German shepherd, and in the wet weather, my soon-to-be-replaced old jacket was covered with the dog’s fur. She was apologizing, while I just shrugged, put on my best “whatever” face and said something like “in this weather, it’ll be washed away in an hour”, which in the end happened. Maybe along with my optimism, the weather became gradually better.

Another day like that came in June. Long story short, we walked in cold, damp day where I even borrowed my gloves to a fellow hiker for the day. By recounts of the people down in the village, there was nasty hailstorm, so we ended up better up in the hills, despite visibility being maybe twenty meters.

In similar style was the first day of my Slovakian holiday last year, which eventually led to gloomy sights like this. Fortunately, it was mostly just mist and no rain until later in the day, where it was at first maybe 30-minute light shower, and later one that was heavier, but at that time I was in the hotel, sipping warm tea completely oblivious to what went on outside.

Wet weather fits some, I presume…

The second day had still some hints from that.

And it could do quite some nice sights as well…

Wet smile prototype

But the probably worst in this regard was in mid-September and my short stay in the Southeast Poland. That day was a hike to the Poland-Slovakia-Ukraine tripoint, which I really did not want to miss. And so, I went on in that weather, reaching it with my top-most layer of clothes quite soaked. Fortunately, only the top layer.

The rain was actually in the worst state by the time we reached that place, so we hastily took turns taking photos at the obelisk (with our soaked hand shivering, hence some of them are leaning to a side a bit) and while the original plan was to have a snack break there, it did not take long to change that decision.

Of course, Murphy’s laws are higher force that nothing else can compete with, and so by the time we returned to Wielka Rawka peak, it was not as bad and only was getting gradually better. It was windy, which gave us hope that the wind, even though cold, could help our clothes get dry faster. And there were hints of something better here and there…

Us: “It might be sunny end of the day.” Weather: *evil grin*

Being much more optimistic, we reached our destination, took a break on the village’s edge for some refreshments and then set out to go across the village and find our pick-up point. And that’s when it went worse, because the rain was back with a vengeance. In maybe twenty minutes we were soaked again and instead of waiting for our tour bus for two or three hours, we ended up taking a taxi to the hotel and sending the tour guide a text with list of names who they should not expect there, just in case…

I could probably find more stories with rainy days, but I think it’s enough for this time. I’d also like to show more pictures, but obviously, it’s usually hard to have a chance for nice picture in bad weather, so that’s the end for this time.