Day 9 - Day 11

We left the Warner Springs community center around 6ish and found ourselves walking through more grasslands in the evening light.

In a mile or two we walked through what looked like some sort of obstacle course with ropes and walls to climb, etc. in the interest of not breaking any ankles, we opted to not test anything out and passed on by. What followed on the trail was an old creepy campground which looked to be partly abandoned. There were these great majestic oaks in this section which were impressively large.

Sparrow is at the base of the tree there.

Mike about to pass under a road.

Magic hour mountains.

We only went a few miles out of Warner Springs before we found a nice place to have dinner and make camp for the night. We knew we had some bigger waterless stretches coming up so we wanted to get a good night sleep and be rested for the morning. Ate some dinner and passed out.

DAY 10

The morning was chilly and we got a later start than we had planned but it was earlier than average at least.

A flower we found in the morning.

We went about 2 miles to the next water source, a creek, where we began filling up and lo and behold the cowboys on horseback showed up as we grabbed the last of our water. It was cool to see them again but boy did those horses churn up the little stream as they went thru. By the time all the horses had passed us, the stream looked like a mud pit and there were definitely a few road apples that were dropped into the water. I guess timing is everything, and we were very lucky that we had already gotten all the water that we needed. 

The rest of the day was long stretches of dry trail with little water.

Cowboy rounding the bend before a large rocky mountain.

This source was supposed to smell like sulfur and be an orange color. We passed it up and went to the next.

PCT marker

Bright and exposed rocky area.

The next water after a ten mike dry stretch was at a water tank maintained by a guy named Mike. We followed the signage to his personal home which he opens up to hikers.

The signage was very picture worthy.

Line of hiker packs.

Hikers hanging out.

Most everything was by donation at Mike's and just as soon as we got there they fed us a cheeseburger and our choice of cold drink from a cooler. 

We hung out and caught up with the regular pack of hikers that have been hiking around us, and as tempting as it was to stay and hang out, we decided to push on to get a 20 mile day in so that we could get to town the next day for Mike's B-Day.

It was hard to leave, but we filled our water at the water tank and walked out to hike into the sunset.

As good as most of the water looks, we still filter it if it doesn't explicitly say it is it potable.

Our reward for hiking until dark.

DAY 11

Today is Mike's Birthday! It is also another day of long waterless stretches. From Trail Angel Mike's to the next water was 10 miles but since we did a little night hiking, we killed about half of that last night. 5 more to go to a water tank and then after that we have a 15 mile stretch with no water, the longest stretch since the 20 miles on Day 1.

We got the day underway and it was pretty uneventful save for the beautiful flowers along the way.

So many beautiful blooming cactus.

Tall yukka plant. We know we must be getting our hiker hunger on because a lot of these yukka and agave plants are starting to look like giant asparagus spears to us. We later saw some agave plants later in the day that were around 10 feet tall.

Right before hitting the water source we encountered our first rattlesnake. I was leading and as I passed by a rock, we heard the unmistakeable rattle and I just about jumped 5 feet down the trail. There was no way I could have seen him as he was wrapped around a rock, hidden in shade. We could only see his tail, but it was apparent he was pretty large. Later down the trail, I think everyone was a little on edge from our snake sighting because  when I went to blow my nose at one point, Mike and Sparrow just about jumped out of their skin. It definitely gave me a good laugh.

At the water source we made some food and "cameled up" meaning we drank a ton of water. While here, a lot of the hikers who stayed at Mike's caught up to us as we were leaving. 

For the next 15 miles we hardly saw a soul. It was a really brutal stretch with very little shade - all sand and cacti.

More barrel cacti. Hadn't seen these in a few days.

Beautiful but unforgiving landscape.

So, I kinda lied. There WAS another water source in that 15 mile stretch, but it was a source that is notorious for being disgusting. It's called The Guzzler and it operates much as a sewer does - rain drains down into it. The problem is, little lizards and mice and so on try to get at the water and end up falling in and drowning in it.

This is what we saw when we walked up on it.

Here is the other end where the water and animals enter.

The rest of the day was pretty much slogging out the miles to get to town on time for a burger and a beer.

We found two water caches along the 15 mike stretch, but since we planned appropriately Mike and I didn't need any.

First cache.

Second cache.

The second cache was pretty cool and had water with ICE in it! Again, we didn't take any but man was it tempting. There was also cold sodas (which we couldn't help but indulge in), a hiker box with various supplies in it, a trash can and recycling bin, a mini library, and my favorite part was a box with "PCT Mile 145" postcards and another box to put your completed postcards in. They mail them out once a week. We all wrote a few cards and I was already carrying the postage so it worked out pretty well.

Not what you expect to find in the middle of the desert.

We scrambled the remaining few miles to the road with amazing views:

Made it to the road by 7pm and as soon as we stuck out our thumbs, a super nice chick named Colette stopped for us and gave us a ride in her very clean car to the mountain town of Idyllwild. We tried not to dirty her car with our PCT dirt patinas and hopefully we didn't smell too bad... We had rubbed sage all over ourselves right before getting to the road. :)

In Idyllwild, we quickly found an awesome restaurant and bar called The Lumbermill. We sat at the bar and ordered the Big Foot burgers and an IPA each. Oh. My. God. I cannot even begin to explain how good this food was. I should have taken a pic but I was too distracted by deliciousness. The burgers were each 1 lb patties with pepper Jack and American cheeses, bacon, avocado, grilled onions, tomato, lettuce, and pickles. So incredibly good. They were so huge I couldn't even pick mine up, the patty was too big.

After the gorging we stumbled to the state park with $3/night camping which is conveniently located right in town and fell promptly asleep with full bellies and sore feet.

It was a great day and hopefully a memorable birthday for Mike!