Day 113 – 8/13/13 – 6.2 mi (2040.6)

Ninja and I got to Bannock Pass at 8:30am, a dirt road at the Idaho-Montana border. The guidebook warned that you may not see a car for hours. “This could be a difficult hitch. It’s not a heavily traveled road. I recommend being very creative when hitching…do whatever is necessary to get that car to stop. For the love of god, STOP!” So yesterday I planned to phone Richard, a guy in town who gives rides for a fee so we wouldn’t have to deal with waiting all day, but I never got cell service to call.

Anyway, Sweetfish wasn’t at the road, so I took that as a good sign that he’d gotten a ride last night. After an hour of waiting, 2 cars had gone by, but going the wrong direction. Then a truck pulled up and stopped. It was Richard dropping off fellow nobo hiker Bo. What luck!

We hopped in and got down to Leadore, population 105. The town consists of a gas station with one pump, a restaurant, a post office, a motel, and 3 taxidermists. We found Sweetfish outside the Post Office sorting through the 8 boxes he received. Last night he had gotten a car going the wrong way to turn around and take him the 15 miles back down the dirt road to Leadore. Only Sweetfish!

The three of us got a motel room and had a great afternoon of relaxing, since there was absolutely nothing to do here. LoveNote and Burly Whites got in around 4, after waiting 2.5 hours at the pass for a hitch. Also, they’d gotten pulled over by police on their way down and questioned as suspects for car theft. LoveNote showed off her tan lines as proof she’d been on trail for the past 3 months, and they were released.

Everything in this town closes by 6pm, and we didn’t have enough quarters to dry our clothes. So Burly strung some bear line up across the room.