Day 29 – Lake City Zero Day

A day in Lake City almost feels like a vacation day. It started with pouring rain in the middle of the night and me thankful I was sleeping inside. I can only imagine how loud it would have been in my (wet) tent.

Breakfast

Because all hikers judge time by their meals right? We started our day at Euphoria Breakfast Hangout. It was a decent breakfast – fancy french toast and fruit. If we had truly been thru-hiking I think we both would have still been hungry.

Then we walked around “downtown”. Lake City doesn’t really have much in the way of sidewalks, but is somehow very pedestrian friendly. Not much traffic and wide, flat roads. It is still slightly weird to see OHVs parked right next to all of the trucks.

The shops were all cute – they mostly sold mementos for your vacation. Lake City t-shirts, magnets, mugs, and postcards abound. Though John may have found the coolest one.

Postcard by Michael Underwood, Lake City, CO

While most of the items were mass produced, it was neat to see the local artists pictures and pottery. Then it was back to repack food into odor proof bags and round up all of our cleaned & dried gear. We also needed to research the next section. Having a car makes somethings easier (shopping, getting to & from the trail, laundry) but also makes planning much more difficult. Normally we would just need to pick up our resupply and buy a couple of snacks. The only thing to figure out is how many days of food we need. Now we need to figure out where we are hiking next, where to park, where camping is, and how many miles we need to cover.

Lunch

Lunch started in the best way – with chocolate strawberry cake at the Hiker Center. The center is in the Presbyterian Church’s Annex. Its a cute little room with a hiker box, lots of charging ports, a bathroom, and like most places here – tons of outdoor space to hangout. We went in to see about missing socks and ended up with cake.

Dinner

This was dinner I’ve been looking forward to for all of Colorado. The Packer Saloon Cannibal Grill has a vegetarian Ruben sandwich.

They also have nice outdoor seating (once the afternoon thunderstorm rolls through) and cool spots to hangout.

The pretzels were delicious, as was my Rueben. Unfortunately, John’s veggie burger was cold. It was probably the first time I’ve seen him send food back. The bizarre part is that the exact same sandwich came back. Same missing bite in the burger, same bun & toppings, same now slightly cold fries. So they took his food apart, microwaved the burger and put it back on??

Dessert

To make up for the sadness of dinner we went to the San Juan Soda Company for dessert. It is a cute little store front with a soda counter in the back. They have ice cream in tons of flavors, floats, and espresso. All the delicious things.

You can see why people spend a whole week (or even summer) here. There is great hiking, off roading, a lake, and one very cute town. You never know what you are going to find in Lake City.

Cabin with a living roof in the middle of town

Affiliate Disclosure

This website contains affiliate links, which means The Trek may receive a percentage of any product or service you purchase using the links in the articles or advertisements. The buyer pays the same price as they would otherwise, and your purchase helps to support The Trek's ongoing goal to serve you quality backpacking advice and information. Thanks for your support!

To learn more, please visit the About This Site page.

What Do You Think?