PCT Day 9
Mile 91.2 to 109.5
Start: Cactus filled campsite at the third gate water cache
Finish: Creekside tentsite by Warner Springs, CA
Princess and I woke up in the morning to hear Kinsey, Cambridge (aka Eliza) and Sasquatch with his vibram five finger toe shoes sneak by to go the water cache. They hiked on while it was still cool while we spent some time calling our moms and grandmas, since we had a tiny bit of cell service to wish them a happy Mother’s Day.
We had a hot morning hike, hanging out briefly in an old smuggler’s cave which was pretty cool and then crossing the 100 mile marker – woohoo!! 100 miles down, only 2350 miles left to go! After seeing about 9 miles worth of snakes, tons of multicolored lizards and kicking up dry, dusty clouds with our shoes, we scuffled our way through the sands and arrived at the first true shade that we’d seen in a while. A spigot with cool spring water poured out into a large rectangular basin and we immediately filled up with water, relaxing under the shade trees that we hadn’t seen in dozens of miles of trail.
As we were relaxing, a couple of PCT hikers came running back to the campsite telling us that there was Trail Magic up ahead at the road. Everyone immediately jumped up and like an army of determined zombies, we hobbled off to investigate the claims of Trail Magic. Sure enough at the road, a famous Trail Angel named Bad Santa had all sorts of goodies on him, including his Santa hat, striped red and white socks, a big white beard and a Santa Claus shirt. His Trail Magic coolers were filled with uncrustables peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Oreos, doughnuts, hard boiled eggs, bananas, clementines, Gatorades and sodas for the hikers. He was so sweet and all the thru hikers hung out in the shade with him eating food and chatting.
Shannon and I grabbed a couple of food items, thanking Bad Santa immensely and went back to the campsite to have it essentially to ourselves. Thru-hikers are drawn to Trail Magic like moths to a flame and many have been known to spend hours next to Trail Magic or even camp there overnight (myself included). In the parking lot next to the Trail Magic, horseback riders pulled up in trailers and we rested while they went on with their horses onto the trails during the hottest part of the day.
Back at the shady campsite, we were enjoying a peaceful lunch and siesta until several small garter snakes came barreling down the hillside as we were sitting in the shade relaxing which actually made it not so relaxing. When two foot long snakes come surfing through the leaves down the hill straight at you, it’s not really the most serene lunch that one can have. We also had to watch out for poison oak, which was all over the dang place, and thankfully a Trail Angel had posted a sign next to one of the bushes to let hikers know not to touch anything that looked like this. Poison oak gives you an itchy red rash and blisters similar to poison ivy and so we tried our best to avoid it!
Princess North Star (aka Shannon) truly lived up to his “princess” name when I peeled his Trail Magic hard boiled eggs for him. I had washed my hands but we’re in the desert and I got a little bit of dirt smudges on them eggs. When I hand peeled the eggs and gave him one, Princess looked disgusted and promptly said, “Um…I’ll go get my own eggs. I don’t want your grubby hands on them.”
So there Princess went, walking another .5 mile round trip to and from the Trail Magic to grab some clean hard boiled eggs that didn’t have dirt smudges on them. When people ask why he is named Princess North Star, we now refer to the “Hard boiled eggs incident” as an example of his “Princess” behavior.
After hanging out for a while at the campsite dodging snakes and poison oak during the hottest part of the day, we took off hiking another 8 or so miles to the tiny blip of a town called Warner Springs. We trekked across gorgeous open fields filled with cattle and shade trees. The trail passed San Ysidro Creek which was idyllic and clear with fresh water moving quickly. The creek was also was full of cows, so we had to be careful where we took water from and scared the cows away before sitting down to rest under the shade tree. One of the trees housed a large bee’s nest which we didn’t hear the buzzing until we already had our stuff spread out all over the place. Both the bees and the cows left us alone as I put my sore, blistered feet up on a large log near the creek.
We had heard that cows in this area really like the salt from sweaty hikers and they would chase you to lick the salt off you. Oh how the food chain has been flipped having a living cheeseburger chasing us humans instead the other way around! Thankfully the cows we saw left us alone.
As the sun was starting to set, we hiked past Eagle Rock which was really exceptional looking just like an enormous eagle with its wings spread wide. We took the drone out in the field below Eagle Rock and did some cool shots following us as we hiked. Another hiker named Chainsaw (who is called that because he snores as loud as a chainsaw cutting down trees) hung out with us for a little, and together we watched chubby pocket gophers poking their heads out of their gopher holes in the sand. Shannon used to get paid money to trap pocket gophers when he was working on his neighbor’s farm so he didn’t think they were as cute as I did.
We trekked down a really well trodden trail to Warner Springs community center where we filled up our water bladders with water, hung out and snagged some Trail Magic food leftover from a firefighter gathering that had too much food. You could also take bucket showers on the weekend at the community center, but we were too tired to do so. I tried to feed a curious cow in the neighboring field a wild mustard plant through the fence, but he was too scared of me – I guess I’m pretty terrifying.
We joined about a dozen other hikers camped out alongside a creek on a flat gravel bed, most of us hikers waiting for the Post Office to open the next morning at 8am to pick up our mailed resupply boxes. As we ate dinner, I wanted to pet these giant fat toads that were hopping around, but it turns out 1) the toads were endangered Arroyo Toad and 2) the internet said that they were actually poisonous to the point of where you can either get an itchy throat from touching them or you can die (and everything in between). Yikes – sounds fun! We left the toads alone and went to bed under the stars with the sounds of a healthy population of endangered Arroyo toads hopping around the gravel flats around our tent.