5/9/17 101.1 Spring to 115.4 Tentsite

Today was a great day.  After our big 24 mile push, we were excited to have a short day and to resupply at Warner Springs (mile 109.5). 

We let ourselves sleep, which in trail life means 5:30 a.m. but Sherpa woke up feeling more tired than when she went to sleep. I was feeling a little tired myself having woken up at 5 feeling refreshed, but drifted for 30 minutes. Of course that extra half hour cost me and I was feeling groggy. 

In spite our sleepiness, we let the air out of our mats and packed up. We both scarfed down a protein bar and hit the trail.  Within seconds we paused so that Sherpa could pee and I could put on my jacket. Off to a great start.  Two people passed us, Fran and Mayo. We got ourselves together a second time and caught up to them. 

We hiked through some very nice valleys with beautiful live oak trees all day.  After a few miles we came upon Louie and Amelia.  Louis carries a guitar and seems to be pretty good at it.  A mile or two later we entered a beautiful prairie of rolling hills and a few isolated live oak trees where the horizon seemed to be tilted to the south. 

It was an odd and impressive view. After some time we arrived at Eagle Rock. Sherpa mentioned several times she was excited to see it. I, of course didn’t know the first thing about it, or any other significant sites on the PCT with a few exceptions. 

It definitely lived up to the hype.  It really does look like an eagle and shortly after we arrived we were joined by Amelia and Louie. They took our picture and vice versa then we hiked on, only to quickly run back to retrieve my water bottle which Amelia was kindly carrying. 

After Eagle Rock we only had a short distance through a beautiful forest valley to our destination, Warner Springs.  

Warner Springs’ main feature is a community center right off the trail that caters to, and celebrates hikers. The town is small and there are so many wonderful volunteers shuttling people around and helping them with everything you can imagine. Here is a quick summary of offerings: camping, coffee, Wi-Fi, computers, resupply store, vibrating foot bath and Epsom salts, gearshop, rides to the post office, bucket showers, laundry, clothesline, power, hiker box, hiker clothes, books, and lots of wonderful places to sit. Pretty unbelievable! 

We were one of the first ones there and it filled out quickly. I got a coffee and headed to the post office with Slow Buffalo, Andrew, and Mayo. We had a great talk and it helped keep me from getting lost on the shortcut. Sherpa stayed and did internet chores.  

After I got back and did my chores, we went through our resupply. We were generally pretty happy with our choices, though we are carrying way too much food for 70 miles! Most people were in the same boat and we made lots of cool food aqusitions. I got Starbucks VIA and some dehydrated Asian veggie mix, which was amazing in my Pad Thai tonight. 

After we chilled for a while and had lunch we packed up and said goodbye to most everyone to hike another six miles.  We knocked that out in no time and camped next to a pretty stream, ate Pad Thai, which I generously gave some of mine to Sherpa. Amazing, I know.  And now we are in our tent getting some early r&r before an early day and potentially 21 miles.