No Room at the PO
This is a two-part post Howard wrote about the post office in Stehekin. The second post includes a job opening.
About a month ago I was in Stehekin. This is the last outpost at the north end of Lake Chelan. Stehekin is a popular spot for many PCT hikers to arrive at. Known for the popular bakery, laundromat, and tiny post office not mention a cold dip in the lake. Many thru hikers come to Stehekin to collect what may be their last resupply box before finishing the trail.
Stehekin is both picturesque and a welcome respite from the trail. There isn't a lot there but there is the bakery/restaurant, a limited store along with a Park Service office and a few other amenities. Being in Stehekin in mid-August I was surprised to notice the number of thru hikers already coming through on their way north. Some had jumped ahead due to fires down south and some had gotten started at the southern terminus in March. Still others talked about high average mile days (25+). These were the leading edges of the 'bubble' making its way toward Canada.
A friend who spends his summers in Stehekin volunteering for the North Cascades National Park at the Buckner orchard site suggested I drop by the postoffice. He knew my interest in the PCT and thought I would appreciate how many resupply boxes were there. He was right. The little Stehekin post office was overflowing with boxes. So much so that they had an extra metal shipping container outside to help manage the abundance. I have seen other places that collect hiker boxes but this was really on quite a scale for the tiny post office.
I was informed that many boxes go unclaimed. Certainly there are any number of circumstances that befall PCT hikers between the time they leave the southern terminus and the time they expect to get to Stehekin. These unclaimed boxes will be sent back provided they have a return address at no charge. That in itself is an amazing fact.
It appears that for a few weeks every year this local post office gets more traffic than zip codes twice or three times its size. The lowly small post office is something many of us take for granted. What a loss it would be to not have the services that exist up and down the PCT serving hikers as they make their trek north or south. Many of those services are dependent upon the USPS.