5/2/17

Day 9

Miles: 109.2 to 115

Imagine a town where local sherif comes to a campground in the morning and offers hikers a ride to a post office which is 1.2 miles away. That’s Warner Springs. This community rocks. 
The town is really small and there is no store to resupply which means that most of the hikers have a box waiting in that post office which means that today we hitched a ride in the sherif’s car. It was awesome.

We took it easy today, and rested in the community resource center for most of the morning, figuring a plan for the next 70 mile stretch which will take us to Idyllwild. To give my foot more rest, we decided to spread the distance in 4.5 days. 

Today we hiked only 5 miles. 1:30 pm was not the best time to hike, the sun was beating on us badly and it after two days in the air conditioned environment it felt very hot. 

The hike started on easy grade, mostly flat, as the trail led us through another meadow. In the middle, we met a group of about seven cows hiking the PCT southbound and we politely stepped of the trail and let them pass. 

After the meadow the grade steepened. It was not super steep but under the hot sun it was bad. It was the very first time during the entire hike that drops of sweat dripped of my forehead.

Our campsite was a lovely sandy pit by a lively creek. Creeks are unusual to come by at this part of California, and we took advantage of this one to soak our feet for a very long time. 

About an hour after we set up, other hikers started to show, new faces mostly with the exception of two German ladies we briefly met at Scout’s and Frodo’s. 

We shared our experiences from the trail over dinner, and like always we crawled to tent when the darkness fell.