June 27: Slow Leavin' Stehekin

I was up and around early this morning. It rained through most of the night and I was ready to go find a cup of coffee at normal rising time around 6:00 am. Stehekin is a nice little town -- a resort, really, stuck out here, secluded in the middle of the North Cascades. There is a lodge -- a remnant, it seems, of what was once a great wilderness lodge, visited by travelers, prospectors and fortune hunters in the late 19th century -- a beautiful park ranger center, a free shower (!), a tiny mini-mart, a wonderful bakery, and a grand total of about 70 year-round residents. There are mountain bikes for rent and horse riding trips available, boat rides on Lake Chelan and airplane adventures for touring around the area, according to an interpretive placard.

I meandered around the sleepy town with my steaming cup of coffee checking out the sights -- Stehekin is the Native Skagit term meaning "a way through." I like that. The lake and the nearby rivers were used by the native people as a mode of travel and commerce through these mountains, I suppose, and later became the epicenter of a fruitless mining boom. The area was settled in the 1880s and tourism has been its major industry since.

Eliza slept until 10am, taking care to kick her head cold before climbing out into the foggy drizzle of the morning. We took a long time cleaning clothes and showering, doing our Post Office errands, eating, etc. and ended up missing the 2:00 shuttle which would have taken us back up the road 7.5 of the 10 miles toward the trail. The next shuttle wasn't until 5:00 and takes an hour to reach its end point back at the Ranch where we had dinner last night. Disappointed, we stretched, aired our belongings out, wasted time. When you're ready to hike, you're ready to hike. And we were ready to hike. Finally, we stuck our thumbs out and caught a ride out to the bakery where we coffed again and shared a huge raspberry scone. We hit the trail at around 6pm, after catching two more rides and walking a good four miles down the road. It feels good to be back out here now. We walked only five miles or so before setting camp. And, in camp, -- applause everyone -- we hung our first bear bag! It was makeshift and too close to the tree trunk, but there it hangs. It'd better not get eaten!