Miles 92-109
I woke up this morning feeling pretty ragged. The wind blew all night, continuing to knock my tent down and cover all of my things in a thick layer of dust. Somehow I also spilled last night's pasta all over my food bag, which was tough to clean up with my limited water supply. I was underslept, hungry, sore, and dirty, but there was no time to focus on that. Time to hike 17 miles into Warner Springs!
After a short ascent, the trail became a very gentle downhill slope.
I use an iPhone app to monitor the miles and I could see that I was getting close to mile 100 pretty early in the day. I expected to find a "100" marker on the trail, but I couldn't find anything so I set one up myself! Nightgown, Sug, Lingo and I took some pictures, then watched as other hikers stopped to take pictures as well. My 100-mile marker is famous!
We stopped for lunch at a spring-fed water tank 9 miles before Warner Springs. Here I met a bunch of new hikers (Squirrel, Early Bird, and Martin) who started two days after our group. We lounged in the shade for quite a while and had some lunch and coffee. Lunch today is avacado with hot sauce.
Coffee. COFFEE. The last, coffee fed, 9 miles flew by in a rush of trail dancing, trail running, singing, and the occasional break in the sun. The landscape has temporarily changed from chaparral to large open fields with the occasional Live Oak and outcropping of rocks. This has been the most beautiful section of the PCT we've seen so far. Here is Nightgoen, Rocket Llama, and I in front of a PCT marker. Rocket was huuuuuungry.
Look at this insanely beautiful scenery!
Before the last stretch into town, we stopped at Eagle Rock. I was still shaking from the caffeine and I couldn't resist the temptation to dance with the eagle.
We arrived at the Warner Springs community center after closing, but were greeted by Troll with PIZZA. Another hiker's parents had given him a lift into town and he wanted to return the previous day's favor by surprising us with more pizza.
I decided to cowboy camp for the first time tonght. Cowboy camping just means camping without a tent. Most hikers put their sleeping matt on top of a groundsheet. This is Rocket's well loved ground sheet that she also used for hitchhiking signs on the trail last year.
Today was a perfect day. The scenery was beautiful, the company was perfect, and there was PIZZA. I L-V-E the PCT.
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