Mount Laguna - Pioneer Mail

Today was a good day. Finally! After being awoken to the smell of hash browns and bacon by our new friends we were again catered to and enjoyed ham and eggs and more bacon. We helped them pack up their cars and proceeded into the tiny town of Mount Laguna to solve our pack problems.

The town of mount Laguna consists of five or six main buildings and has a population of a whopping 60 people. Pretty sure we met most of them. It is also home to the coolest outdoor outfitter I have ever been to and probably ever will. It's the size of a small coffee shop but has more equipment than an rei. There is stuff hanging from the ceilings and every space imaginable has something attached to it and then ten more thingymajigs dangling from it. This is where we went to get ourselves back on track and oh boy did they set us straight.

Immediately upon walking up to the shack Mike, the pack expert, walked out of the storage room and greeted us with a couple cold beers. He told us to set our packs down right in front of the store on the gravel parking lot and went right to work. He walked each of us through every piece of gear in our bags and asked us what it's purpose was. Things that served the same purpose as another item got sent home. He also eliminated every stuff sack, tent sack, etc that we had and showed us how to pack our bags by simply stuffing everything into our packs to save time breaking camp. It's like the tips he was giving us were thru hiking gold nuggets to solve every problem we were encountering thus far. Great. After cutting about 20 pounds from each of our packs we purchased newer ultralight packs and we were on our way!