CS2211 to Trout Lake – 8-29

Our campsite was surprisingly warm in the morning. Warm, and humid — my quilt had gotten condensation.

We packed up and headed down the trail. Curiously, at the place I’d seen the lights, we saw no sign of Bill — or of a usable campsite of any kind. The ground was covered in branches and bushes, with no clearings for tenting.

The trail was easy today, and we only had about 15 miles to the road where we’d hitch into town. Alongside that easy trail, there were many huckleberry bushes, and I finally felt certain enough that they really were edible to eat some of them.

Aside from huckleberry foraging, it was pretty much walk, walk, walk, hoping to get near Trout Lake by lunch.

The town of Trout Lake is known for its affinity for PCT hikers, and when we were getting close to the road, we called the general store to arrange for somebody to drive is into town. Apparently there are many Trout Lake residents who are happy to drive out to the trailhead in the middle of a Monday to help hikers get to town. It would be 13 miles of road walking, otherwise.

They connected us to Gary. Gary picked us up with this.

It was a comfy ride into town.

Trout Lake is a pleasant little town. There’s a restaurant, store, post office, and bookkeeper, and that’s about it for downtown.

We thought of staying at the local druidic abbey, but it was 4 miles out of town and a little expensive, so we stayed at a bed and breakfast close to downtown.

All we really needed to do in town was buy a bit more than 2 days of trail food, and the general store was fine for that. It was a casual place, where the locals knew all the stock.

We got our trail food, and some Oregon and Washington beer, and had dinner at the town’s restaurant. One of the other customers identified us as PCT hikers, and before we knew it, we had a ride back to the trailhead from our bed and breakfast at 9:30 the next morning.

We had our dinner, headed back to the bed and breakfast, had our beer, discussed DJ Jazzy Jeff, and went to sleep.