The first day of the Jamboree started with a moderately early start at about 9am from my brother David's house. We started our way up to the Cabela's just off 95 where we met up with the rest of the convoy which consisted of the Watermans, the Noyes, Sean and Evelyn. I did convince myself to buy a pair of Merrell barefoot trail runners while there. The stop wasn't very long though. After everyone arrived we lined up and headed on to Bethel which was probably another 2 hours or so further up. As we drove in the rain picked up more and more until it was basically a steady rain for the rest of the day.
When we arrived in Bethel we needed to go through tech inspection and register for our trails but that wasn't supposed to start until 5pm and it was between 1 and 2pm. Dave Waterman convinced them to leave our jeeps lined up at the front of inspection so we could get through fast. They closed up the entrance to tech inspection behind us. Bethel's administration building is right in the center of town and there isn't great parking there so we got lucky on that count. After getting lined up we ate lunch at the Bethel Inn which was probably a poor choice as the waitress was slow and didn't really seem to care about us. We were warned at about 3pm that they were going to start tech inspection and ran over to get that done. That went through quick but we then had to wait until 5pm for the registration portion. I would rather they had started both at the same time.
David checked us into the hotel and I stayed with the Watermans as they checked into their hotel which was next door to the administration building. At just past 4pm we got in line for registration. There were already a few people ahead of us. It was pouring out by this point and we got lucky to get inside the building to wait unlike the people behind us who got drenched outdoors. Another reason I would rather they started registration early. Once they started registration it moved rather quickly. We all managed to get on the same two trails except Evelyn who had a Jeep not able to do them (30" tires and no lift). We signed up for Ridgeline on Friday and the Everett Chili Trail on Saturday. Ridgeline was listed as the harder of the two.
After registration we headed over to Suds Pub for dinner where we basically got a lot of pizza and some beer. After hanging out there for a short while we split up to our respective hotels and relaxed for the night. We were staying at the Inn at the Rostay. It is off route 2 I think, or was it 26? In any event it was only a couple miles outside of town. We got an efficiency apartment as we were able to register for trails only again and that meant we needed a kitchen. The place was nice, my main complaint being the shades on the windows blocked 0 light at all. I had to hang the bedspread over it the second and third night because I really didn't sleep on Thursday night. Still the place had a lot of room, 2 bedrooms and even a spare set of bunk beds in the TV room.
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