14.8 miles (Mile 94.7 – 109.5)
PCT Mile 94.7 – Warner Springs
What a day! Again! It was hot, the hiking was great and tough, we hit a milestone, saw a famous PCT site, found some trail magic, and made it to Warner Springs a day earlier than we planned!
The milestone we hit was the PCT 100-mile mark! We were pretty excited. It’s kind of a tradition on this trail to draw the milestones out with something, and it was already done when we got there. On stones, right along the trail was this:
Our water source today was Barrel Spring. There’s a spring that runs down to a spigot that constantly runs into a cement trough. We had to treat it, but it was good… and pretty cold! BUT! The best part? The trough of cool water had cans of soda in it! I had a root beer and a cola and they made me burp pretty good. A bunch of days with no carbonation, then two full cans? Burp city!
A little later, after a hot, shadeless stretch through a huge cow-grazing meadow, we saw Eagle Rock. If you’ve ever followed a PCT journal or saw any videos related to the trail, you’ve probably seen a picture of it… as you will now! I had to climb onto his head, of course!
We took a long break in the shade before moving on just another couple of miles to Warner Springs. There is a community center here with volunteers for us… PCT hikers. They have a really nice shower outside, porta-johns, laundry, meals, light resupply, computers, a power strip for charging electronics, hoses for water, a shady tree with green grass (funny story about that in a minute…), and three full hiker boxes. Hiker boxes are a place for us to toss in food or gear that we no longer want or need that another hiker can have if they want.
So when we arrived, we bought cold Mt. Dews that REALLY hit the spot! And I finally had a craving today! For a NutRoll! They only had Payday for sale… close but not the same. I’ll look for one in our next town, I guess…
Hikers can camp behind the community center, and there’s this really sweet patch of green grass in shade out front. When we got here that’s where everyone was hanging out. We were the last ones there, cooking dinner before heading in back to camp. All of a sudden the sprinklers popped up and started spraying water all over! We scrambled and laughed as we tried like heck to get our stuff all out of the sprinkler range! I only got a little wet when I ran through to get my and Rachel’s socks that WERE drying on the nearby fence. It had to be a sight.
A few randoms:
In my 100-mile shot I’m wearing those rediculous pink silkweight pants to keep the sun off my heat rash. It got too warm so I took them off. The rash didn’t get any worse, so that’s good.
I got another new blister on my left pinky toe. The count is at 3. Not bad…
Rachel washed the boogers off from the corner of my bandana today. What a good friend (she knew they were there, too)!
Tomorrow morning we buy breakfast, heal blisters, and start back on the trail in the afternoon after the heat of the day.
Good night!