A Zero Day at Dinsmore's Hiker Haven in Baring, Washington

The Blog is back after a long delay from no cell service for the last 2 weeks. We were in a land of tall mountain ranges, narrow deep valleys and remote resupply towns (like Stehekin).

Continuing where I left off...

We had a nice breakfast buffet at the Cascadia Inn where we stayed last night in Skykomish, Washington. 

Sometime in the night our clean laundry was deposited outside our door so we felt like we could sit in a room full of people and not embarrass ourselves! 

We then packed up our stuff and walked to the highway to a great little deli and store for a take out sandwich where we stocked up on some snack stuff that would fill out our resupply boxes. 

We called the Dinsmore's who are extraordinary trail angels to the hiking community. They provide a bunkhouse, laundry, refrigerator and hot plate, clothes to use while laundry is being done, bins of hiker stuff that you can look through and take if you need it or drop off if you don't. 

Another trail angel, Mr Smith, came to pick us up and take us the few miles down to Baring where we were welcomed by 2 other hikers that were there,  one was our acquaintance, El Tortugo (the turtle) who we'd given Aleve to a few days before while hiking. The other was a young man doing a southbound hike, named U-Turn, who we pumped for trail information. 

Andrea (aka Mom) Dinsmore brought in a sourdough loaf of bread and a cake that were donated while we were there. Mostly we rested and watched a video made by a guy of his Continental DivideTrail hike. I spoke with Jerry Dinsmore, who used to be a truck mechanic for Kenworth. He had a huge garage full of tools and with his own extensive know- how, maybe he could fix my hiking pole that broke the day I got off the trail (thank goodness it waited until then!).  He took the pole and disappeared for awhile then came back with his solution, he put a pin in the broken part so it would at least be usable at the height I chose but I wouldn't be able to change it. I was so happy to have it fixed and that worry off my shoulders! 

Jerry, you're a gem!

Meanwhile Peggy & I got our resupply boxes from their warehouse and found that her Stepmother had sent a box of cookies and a box of dark chocolates! Woohoo! The 4 of us ate most of them and they tasted wonderful. We repacked our food supply and felt we were ready for 7 days on the trail. Neither one of us were happy with the heaviness of our packs, Peggy weighed hers at 32# with 1 liter of Gatorade.  Mine weighed 28# with 1/2 liter. El Tortugo and I started to settle down in our own bunks for the night while Peggy and U-Turn finished their movie and lights were out. We were all heading out to the trail tomorrow morning.