Mile 2204.7 – 2226.

Our goal was to get into Trout Lake before the post office closed at 4:00 on Friday. Bedazzled had new shoes waiting there, and it wouldn’t reopen until Monday at 9:00. It was a race so to speak. We also had a food resupply to pick up, but I shipped it to the General Store, which is open until 8:00.

We were tramping through the forest for a couple hours when we spotted a white board. “Geared Up’s trail magic ahead. Turn left on the road to the first campsite. Tacos, beer, and a movie at 7:00 pm.” Too good to pass up. 

We headed on down and met Geared Up, who had hiked the trail in 2013. He made good on the promise of tacos and beer and because it was still before noon, he threw in a banana too.

We were in a hurry, but used the trail magic to serve as our lunch break. With full bellies, we left behind the party and powered on. We arrived at FS Road 23 just before 2:40 to the sight of 4 other hikers waiting. It looked like it was going to take a while to get into town and it did.

It turns out there was a rubbish sale in Trout Lake and all the sparse traffic was going out of town with rubbish strapped to the top of their cars. It took 20 minutes for a car to come the right direction and it just sped on by. We waited for over an hour and finally got a ride from a fellow in a hurry. We were thankful for the ride, but almost lost our lunches on the curvy roads down to the town. 

We got in at 4:15. Damn. Too late to get the shoes. The only consolation was that we found out that a postal employee would be in the post office from 9:30 – 11:30 on Saturday to sort mail even though the building would be closed to the public. We still had a chance to get Bedazzled’s shoes without having to stay extra days in town or adandon the shoes.

We grabbed some snacks at the General Store and our food resupply and drank some brews with Hiep and Candy Man. The owner of the store let us camp next to it on her front lawn and Hiep let us shower in the room he had rented.

Tomorrow we will try to get Bedazzled’s much needed shoes.