Day 12 (13 April) - Mile 101.22 - 112.51

Mountain Valley Retreat, Ranchita, to Agua Caliente Creek, CA

We woke up to our last meal at the Mountain Valley Retreat...some kind of scrambled egg yumminess with a berry, agave, protein shake. We said goodbye to Sheri and George and Melinda drove us to the trailhead...BONUS!  What a great group of people. If we are ever in the area again we will definitely come back to this place and spend a few days. Here we are ready to go after a nice day off:

Refreshed and ready to go.

We were told that today's hike was supposed to be easy with very little climbing or decending. This is good, because although we were rested, our packs were very heavy. We are each now carrying 6 days worth of food (about 10 pounds) since we resupplied our food at the Retreat. This (supposed) easier terrain is just what we needed after our day off and our heavy pack, but what we saw wasn't looking that easy.

Where is the flat we were promised?

Then we saw it around the next bend. A beautiful meadow with the trail going right through it.

Ahh...a nice flat meadow.

We noticed that after the meadow it looked like the trail went back into the hills, so we enjoyed the 154 steps...yes, I counted...on the nice flat terrain.  We even stopped for a picture halfway through.

154 steps across to the other side.

Taking our time, enjoying the meadow.

So, we hit the hills thinking, "That was fun while it lasted." And then we went around another bend and...meadow for as far as we could see.

Feeling so happy at this point.

More meadow views.

And yet some more meadow views.

After a couple of miles of meadow walking we came across another famous PCT landmark...Eagle Rock. Wow! How cool is this!

After about the 9 mile point of the day we made it to Warner Springs. Up until a few years ago there was a resort that all the PCT hikers stopped at. The resort went bankrupt, so the town now keeps a Community Center opened in April and May for the thru-hikers...so cool!

Thanks Warner Springs!

We had to patronage the place:

Hamburger for Tim, Veggiburger for Gerri.

We stayed there for about 1.5 hours and rested our feet, ate, and used the computers and then set off for a couple more miles of beautiful meadow hiking and then a glider flew overhead. Remember earlier when I said we said goodbye to George at the Mountain Valley Retreat?  Well, he flys these gliders, so maybe that was him buzzing us.

Hi George.

Finally, we wound up at this great old campground right next to a flowing stream. It is private property, but PCT hikers are welcome. Again, so cool!

Why thank you property owner.

So we ate peanut butter and jelly on crackers, set up our tent, and are going to sleep to the sound of a stream.

Another great day!