July 6

Distance today: 0.0 miles*

Mile marker: 80.7

Because we were committed to taking a zero day (no trail miles), we slept in til past 8am only to find the campsite nearly abandoned. It seems everyone else was making their way out of town today. We assumed that a new influx of hikers would be replenishing the camp today. We cooked some of our remaining food for breakfast while chatting with a friendly Canadian who did the first section with his dad and whose car broke down at Hart’s Pass. Jason had tomato orzo surprise and Alex had blueberry oatmeal.

We started the day by hanging near the wifi spot. Jason downloaded offline data for the Merlin and Audubon apps to better identify the birds in the area.

We made our way to “town” checking the general store for bug spray (which we unwisely did not bring) and plugging in our power adapter to the community charging station. We decided to make the 2 mile walk back to the bakery. For lunch, we split a veggie sandwich and gazpacho. Then we decided to make the additional ~1.5 mile walk to Rainbow Falls.

We stopped in at the Old Stehekin schoolhouse and read some imaginative stories and poems by the children in town. When walking back into town, we went passed the bakery again and HAD to get a cinnamon roll to share. And as the day wore on and we made the walk back, we stopped for a quick dip in the lake.

Finally, we made it to the Landing and explored the wee post office. This is where we found our first trail magic! Someone from Spokane left some goodies and prepaid postcards in the lobby. We each grabbed a Gatorade powder mix in preparation of our hike our tomorrow with heavy packs full of our resupply foods.

When we reached camp, we found it to be nearly empty. Only one additional tent from how we left this morning. Crazy how a single day can make such a difference in the ebb and flow of the hiker bubble. Some additional hikers showed up including a woman from Denmark who was only on her fourth day, properly exhausted from the heat and distances she covered.

For dinner, Jason had spaghetti and Alex had coconut carrot dahl. We experimented with the egg stir fry and tried to separate the egg from the rest to make a peculiar scrambled egg. It was weird but fine. Not exactly high class cuisine. We tried to eat as much of our remaining food as possible. Alex did some shoe repair for her already failing Altras hoping they last as long as we need them to.

We’ll grab our package first thing tomorrow morning and take the 11:30am shuttle back to the trail. Although it’ll be a short day, we should have fresh-ish legs and will try to get most of the way up the hill tomorrow.

All in all, Stehekin is neat and a bit weird. It doesn’t make sense as a place, but I’m glad it was here. Our zero day cost us 22k steps, but we did it without packs so it doesn’t really count.