Wednesday, October 10th.

Wednesday, October 10th: Today's miles = 0.

I woke up this morning in time to catch the 9am bus from Highbridge to Stehekin. I wasn't going to stay the night there but a group of people ended up staying and it was too enticing. I got to shower (kind of), although, I didn't do laundry. You realize just how disgusting you and your clothes are when you shower and put the unwashed clothes back on.

Stehekin is a tiny town tucked away in the mountains. The only way to get here is to walk through the mountains or take a boat from another town across a giant lake. The town sits right on the edge of the lake and has only a restaurant and a post office. To buy groceries the residents of Stehekin order from the grocery store across the lake and the goods are then transported to the town a few days later via barge. The little town had a rec room with a pool table and a computer. All the hikers hung out there. Funk got a room for the night and Cowboy, Trooper, Shep Dog, Big Cat, Chef, Pocahontas, Pitfall, Baboon, and I ended up staying in it. It was a smelly situation for sure.

My zero day was relaxing until about 8:30pm when some of the boys got a bit intoxicated and started wrestling each other. As their were 10 hikers there, some of us were in the hotel room, others in the rec room, and I was sitting outside enjoying the view from the lake when I heard a ruckus coming from the rec room. Chef then came storming by shortly after saying, "Cowboy broke his friggin' arm!". My first thought was "how in the hell..." and then I remembered. We are 89 miles from the end of the trail and Cowboy has to go and break his arm wrestling!!!

Now, Stehekin has no doctor. All it has is an EMT in the ranger station. The boats were done running for the day to get across the lake and his injury wasn't serious enough for any other action so poor Cowboy took a bunch of painkiller Opiates and it toughed it through the night with ice on his arm. The wrestling boys weren't feeling so tough anymore and I might say that they all seemed to either sober up rather quickly or pass out. 89 friggin' miles from the end of a 2,663.5 mile hike and to break your arm...!!