Warner Springs – 110 Miles
Greetings from the town of Warner Springs, CA – trail mile 110, or for you type “A’s” about 1/26th of the way to Canada, both in distanvce as well as time. Just don’t tell it to the feet, they think the rest of the body is crazy. So, we have told them this is our destination, which it is – for today.
The desert heat was grueling over the last week and we realized that our pre-hike conditioning in Tucson was insufficient. We are still too susceptible to sunburn and need more carbohydrates to keep up the daily hiking milage. So we are spending the day and evening here in Warner Springs to get in more pool time and beer drinking at the natural hot spring pool at the resort. It’s never too late to get in shape.
There have been so many changes in the PCT experience in the last ten years that in many ways this trip is like hiking it for the first time.
In the rolling hills around Campo, along the crest of Mt. Laguna and in the Anza Borrego Desert an abundance of well timed winter rain, as well as occasional wildfires in the past several years have brought out wild flowers galore.
And the growing popularity of long distance hiking has brought out people galore, congregating like cattle at the watering holes and infrequent camps. At the ADZPCTKO “kick off” party sponsored by the thru hikers from 1977, at Lake Morena, there were over 400 people including 200 thru hikers starting out their treks the same weekend as us!! We have been seeing at least 20 other hikers on the trail every day.
And there are as many “trail angels” as on the AT, if not more, offering sodas, beer and water at some of the road crossings. Very different from 1994 when such “trail magic” was virtualy unheard of.
There are familiar parts to this trip too; including “One Braid” who hiked with us in 1994, who we shared a camp with at Lake Morena and who shares our sense of awe at the differences.
And the sand and sun are much the same, only more….. Tues it was a 104F record setting temp at Scissors Crossing, right in the middle of a 22 mile day. It was one of a couple of record setting high temp days for Southern CA. The heat has hurt the feet. Everyone, including both the Carrot and I, have blisters raised from sweat, sand, searing heat and long days, not to mention the weight of carrying 6 liters of water at a time. The last four days each were over 20 miles. The legs feel strong, but the feet are sore souls.
On Mt Laguna, Acorn woodpeckers were everywhere. We stopped to watch as five of them invaded one snag. Then, two of the woodpeckers locked themsleves together in some kind of tantric yoga move so that their wings formed a four bladed propeller and they decended in a spiral to the ground, like a “whirlygig.” Some kind of flight of love no doubt.
Otherwise, animal highlights included the trip’s first rattle snake and some incredibe songbirds folling the blossing wildflowers. I am amazed at the number of people we are meeting who are knowledgable bird watchers or botanists.
So far my expectation that this hike will be different from 1994 has been met and exceeded!
