Monday was spent emailing back and forth with Joe Valesko, owner of ZPacks. Once he understood the issue he sent a new hip belt out express overnight. He also beefed-up the cloth channel the frame bar goes through with larger webbing. These are new packs for this year and may still have a couple of bugs and he is willing to tweak them to get them right. 

Overall, Joe is great to work with. If this had been another manufacturer like Osprey, Gregory or Kelty I’d have just purchased a new pack; their warrantee departments are far too slow. 

My enforced stay in Wrightwood has been boring. Damn I miss the trail and begrudge the delay. There is a nice used book store in town and I have already gone through two paperbacks.  But I can read just so much, and I don’t enjoy getting drunk so my options are limited. Monday was Taco night at one of the bars, so I spent a couple of hours there in the evening chatting with other hikers. The high point of the day. 

Tuesday morning was bright and cool: Perfect hiking weather. Sigh… 😞

I waited for the coffee shop to open and ordered breakfast. At least the food was good here. Per the tracking, the package won’t be in until after 4pm. So I’m killing time again. I wish there was a barber in town; I need a hair cut.  There are about eight salons, but those charge $20 more for the same buzz cut. I’ll wait till I get back in Los Angeles next week. 

It’s interesting that I’m meeting hikers I hiked with a week or more ago just getting into town. I guess I’m not as slow as I thought. 😎

The new belt arrived!  It was a Stone Cold Bit** to install because it required bending a carbon fiber flat rod almost to breaking to fit into slots at each side. I broke the spare he sent but the original made it in. (Whew!)

So my pack is fixed and I’m set to hit the trail!  It’s almost 5pm right now, so I’ll start first thing in the morning rather than camp near the road just for the sake of camping.