While much of the United States is in the grip of a very nasty winter, here on the west coast we are experiencing a warmer than usual January. I would boast this, but we are stuck in a weather pattern that brings one windy, rainy storm after another in from the Pacific Ocean. We are all getting tired of staying inside while it pours buckets of rain outside. Which brings me to the rainiest hike that our daughter and I had ever been on....2005. We stopped at the grocery store before heading for the hills and along with our lunch we bought two colapsable umbrellas. Not that we hike with them, but it is nice to be able to eat lunch under some kind of cover. It rained VERY hard that day and much of the 4 mile trail was under at least an inch of water. Often the streams ran down the trails and those that we had to cross were much higher than we expected. But as we had never been there before, we had to keep going to see this massive rock and falls. I must say it was worth the adventure to get there.... :-)