Pacific Crest Trail

My bounce box bounced back at me

Day 66

I don’t know if I have ever properly explained what a “bounce box” is. If I have, then I’ll be repeating myself a bit here. Basically it is just a box with stuff that you keep sending to yourself along the way either as general delivery (where the package is waiting for you at the post office) or to some place offering to hold your package (possibly for a fee). I think it is particularly useful for foreigners as overseas shipping is slow and costly. In my box I had things that I only needed for part of the trail and replacements for things that I expected to wear out. Also, I have the paper maps for the trail ahead in there.

I had sent my box ahead to a hostel in South Lake Tahoe all the way from Kennedy Meadows, so it should have been here a long time ago, but the tracking number pointed to the package being “in transit to the next facility”. I called the hostel yesterday and they checked if the package was there, but he didn’t see it. Then I called the post office and they had a thorough look but didn’t know exactly what had happened. He thought that the package could be in Reno as an arrival scan was missing. Bummer. Today I noticed that the hostel was close to where I was staying and thought that I would drop by in person in the off chance that the person that I talked to yesterday hadn’t looked thoroughly for the box and the tracking information also was misleading. Turned out to be a good idea as they did in fact have my box. “Oh, thank God!”, I exclaimed. If only the guy had looked properly for it yesterday, then it would have saved me a lot of hassle. I next went to Subways and had a footlong to go. I should definitely had ordered two, but oh well.

I still had a ton of things to do even after being happily reunited with my bounce box. I made a rough draft of a resupply plan for the rest of the entire trail, and decided that I would send my bounce box all the way up to Cascade Locks, which is just next to the border of Washington, so that I wouldn’t potentially have to deal with a similar situation for a while. I took some stuff from the bounce box and left other stuff there before going to the post office which was a bit away from where I was staying. I sent my bounce box as planned, but in addition sent my bear canister, ice axe, and microspikes all the way back to Denmark. That was somewhat time consuming as I first had to tape together two cardboard boxes to get one long enough for the ice axe and also there is quite a formula for sending things internationally. I told the postal worker to remember charging me for the boxes and the tape, as he had forgotten about it. He thanked me for my honesty.

On my way back to the hotel I first went to a gas station to get an ice cream. I was quite bland but still nice considering how warm it was. Then I went into a CVS, which is kind of a pharmacy, to get some Zanfel against poison oak, which according to my guidebook is prominent all the way up to Oregon. At 50 USD it was pretty expensive but certainly buys me a piece of mind. Still nearer the hotel I went by the supermarket for some white wine and yet another ice cream. I then did laundry and while waiting for the machines to finish enjoyed some pool and hot tub time. It was getting quite late and I hadn’t done my resupply yet, so I went to the supermarket again which were open until midnight. As you might recall I had kind of grown tired of the food I had in my previous resupplies so I decided to try a lot of new stuff and completely avoided anything with peanuts. I have had it up to here with peanuts (imagine me indicating something far up) as it was in the peanut butter, snickers, and the trail mix, which jointly was all too much. Due to the lateness I simply had a microwave dinner along with a glass wine in my hotel room. The day had gone way quicker than expected, and I hadn’t gotten all my tasks done. None the less it was a nice enough day.

This is and older photo of the bear can.

Leave a Reply