Days 180-181: Double zero in Stehekin

Monday 10/15/12
Miles 0
Elevation 1,100

Tuesday 10/15/12
Miles 0
Elevation same

Monday morning, October 15th.  Today is the last day that the bus runs between the trailhead and the town of Stehekin.  WHEW!  Talk about relief that we made it! :D  So to give you a picture of what Stehekin is like, it is a tiny community with a population of about 80-100 full time residents.  It is nestled between the valley and Lake Chelan, a 55 mile lake.  There are no roads that lead into Stehekin.  The only way you can get here is by foot, ferry, or float plane.  There are cars here that the locals drive.  But no roads that connect to the outside world.  Its a trippy place.

So I think what makes this entire place worth stopping at, is the bakery.  Which is closed.  They closed for the season on October 7th.  Damn.  Its all good though, we're just so freaking stoked to get out of the rain, and let all our stuff dry! :)  So, the entire town of Stehekin consists of a Hotel, a public laundry room (one washer, one dryer), one satellite phone (the only means of communication with the outside world) and a post office.  Thats it.  There is no grocery store.  The residents order their groceries online to the Safeway in the town of Chelan (at the other end of the 55 mile long lake), and they deliver it via ferry.  There is no library, they check out books by a mail order system.  Its really trippy.  The postmaster here is so cool.  He is an old dude with a long white ponytail, a patch over one eye, and rocks out to 70s jams all day.  Lol!

We end up staying here for 2 nights.  The staff is super cool.  Maybe because it was almost end of season, and there were no other guests at the hotel except for 5 of us hikers.  But its super expenisve.  There is a restaurant there, which has pretty darn good food actually.  But unless  you bring a crapload of extra food, there is nowhere to buy food here, so you have no choice but to eat at the restaurant.  At least the lodge sold wine.  And it was really good wine. :D

We spend 2 full days drying out ALL of our clothes and gear.  We setup the tent in the community room to air it out.  It was kind of funny.  They had in-room floor heaters.  I rigged up an oven to dry out the backpacks using the heaters, my trekking poles, and emergency blankets.  I wish i got a picture

this is how i showed up to and spent all day in Stehekin in.  yes, that is an emergency blanket skirt.  its funny, one of the employees asked Kyle when i was away, if i was ok in the head.  hahaha!!  i'm a thru-hiker, of course i'm not ok in the head!  why the heck would anyone walk 2600 miles for fun?  hahaha :D

the stehekin lodge store.  that didn't sell much of anything.

hiker reunion!  Scallywag, Kyle (Not So Bad), and Easily Distracted

Wolverine

Cityfood

Hee Haw (www.jasonhikes.com

drying out the tent.  Kyle is inside, wiping the floor of the tent dry.

this shirt really appealed to my obsession with poop. lol!  too bad i had no need for a shirt.  if this came in poster form, however, i would have mailed one to myself.