Day 105

0 Miles

Most of the day was spent looking at the sky watching the smoke roll over the ridge. Not wanting to get hit by the sprinklers that turn on at 7:30am, we quickly packed up and walked over to the coffee shop. There were already a bunch of hikers milling about and a hotshot crew arrived too. I half-jokingly told Marie I wanted to be a hotshot or smokejumper when we finished the trail, she wasn’t too keen on that idea. Much appreciation for the work those teams do for us all. We didn’t want to resupply until we could check in at the Collier Hotel (an awesome, old boarding house) so we went back to the park and hung out. Various conversations with Night Ranger, Happy Hour, Stoked, Right On Time, and The Count, all about when and where to get back on trail. The developing fires and smoke has everyone worked up and the uncertainty of where it’s safe to start again is unknown. We watched the plumes of smoke start as small puffs over the ridge and eventually in the evening it blanketed the entire valley, Etna included. We got checked into our room around noon, figured out how many days of food we’d need to buy, and then got more snacks from Ray’s across the street. Dollar General is pretty great for cheap resupply so we went there for the bulk of our food, and knew we’d supplement the remainder from the outfitter tomorrow when they opened again. We went to Paystreak Brewing hoping for a beer and some dinner, but there was a band playing and we weren’t in the mood to yell at each other in order to have a conversation, so we went back to Etna Brewing. Hikers had the place packed to the gills, and we recognized about half of them. It almost felt like a high school reunion with so many people in one place that haven’t seen each other in awhile. James (now known as Books), the dude who we camped with in the desert that had an ice axe, was there. There were two seats open at the bar so we took them and ordered beers. The bartender gave us a food menu, mentioned that they were out of a lot of things, but could do tots or wings. We considered our options, but before she came back to take our food order, they announced the kitchen was closed. We downed our beers and left, chatting with the MN Hikings on our way out. Around the corner is Ray’s, and we still hadn’t eaten, so we got buns, meatballs, provolone, and pasta sauce so we could make subs ourselves. On the way across the street to our hotel, we ran into another group of hikers headed to the brewery, but this one included Studio 54. Finally, we found Shade and Studio (though Shade, we learned, was back at the park). Studio was in rare form and gave us big hugs. It was a blast running into him.