Mile 179, Idyllwild!!! We just settled into another log cabin with some fellow hiker trash, in the great town of Idyllwild. What a great place for a zero! Tom(Rock Star trail angel), met us half way to town in his truck. He usually peruses the devils slide trail head for hikers who need a ride into town. That day he had pizza in his front seat for the hungry hikers. What a treat! Thank you so much TOM!!! He only had a couple seats available and since we were hiking 6 deep, he took our load off and strapped our bags to the back of his truck and met the rest of the group at the inn a mile down. Luckily another car stopped to give the rest of us a ride. These acts of kindness from town locals, trail angels and even other hikers; whether it be a bottle water on a hot day in the middle of nowhere, to rides, showers, food etc., makes every moment worth it. This community on the trail is truly magical. We are so happy to be apart of it.

     It's been quite a few miles with many more lessons and good people to ease the struggles. Laughter has been the best therapy. We left for Pioneer mail after a zero in Mt. Laguna and got a lift from the innkeepers wife. We were lucky to leave a good amount of the snow behind us due to our 10 mile jump start. Slopping through the reminiscence of snow, we made our way along the trail screaming with excitement every time we would hit dry ground. We had our sight on a 15 miles that day. The hike was great without any down moments. We took our time, taking pictures; capturing the valleys, snow banks and spring blossoms. We also included one of a snow etched message from a previous hiker expressing that it was an "AWESOME DAY!" We hiked on with that sentiment exactly. By mid day we passed sunrise hwy and stumbled upon a small camp site next to Canyon Rd. with a small stream flowing due to the snow melt. We looked at the time and decided to take a shorter day at 12 miles to catch up on our overdue journal log. That idea was short lived as ASTRO(Andie from Laguna Beach) strolled down the trail to greet us. He had past us earlier so we were a bit dumbfounded to see he fell behind. He wisely stashed some water not to far from the hwy. He took notice to the "choice spot" and decided to call it a day too. After a ravenous display of food shoveling and chit chat, Astro retired to his tent while we scratched our heads trying to produce a journal entry. Usually by the time the sun goes down, we are so exhausted its hard to the find words to communicate to each other, let alone on paper. Once again the journal log was short lived. Gourmet, Snow Blind and Oak Dale came stompin down the trail with Gourmets rap rhyme echoing through the hills. Hiking through the fresh snow from Mt. Laguna, they were stoked to find a camp site with a decent flowing stream and a nice fire set up. We sat up a for awhile getting know each other, which incorporated how Gourmet got his name as he offered "hor dourves" involving a cracker, pesto spread, topped with a shaved Parmesan. As usual we had a good nights sleep and set out early towards the next water source. At Rodriguez Rd we met up with Thor, Penn-J, Platypus, and Habanero and joined them heading towards scissors crossing. Gourmet stayed behind to meet up with his friend Nate, who came out to hike for the week. After several long hours of going down hill through the desert, we hit our first water cache! Water, glorious WATER!!! We ended up meeting Larry(the 70yr old trail angel maintaining scissors crossing water cache) who turned out to be an absolute hoot. Thank you Larry! Thor and the clan hitched a ride into Julian, while we searched for a place to camp with Astro. Eventually we found our selves under a bridge, eating dinner, contemplating on where to sleep. We were debating on hiking a few more miles up the next mountain, but there were several unexpected blisters that had arrived on each of the pinkys, big toes and heels, which made moving unbearable. Shortly after 1st dinner, Gourmet and Nate stumbled upon our hobo bridge dwelling right before the sun called it a day. Since our options were slim we decided to camp where we stood. After we set up our tents, we had second dinner, compliments to Nate; who's bag was filled with various food goodies. That night we dined on Salmon and cous cous with a coconut curry sauce and a hint of sesame oil. YES!!!! Nate, many thanks for the meal and the drop off in Warner Springs.

     For the next two days we ended up hiking with our new companions, Astro and Gourmet through the desert shrubs and cactus's to the beautiful rolling hills, covered in wild dandelions and California poppies. The last day walking to Warner Springs was incredible, drinking in the flowers and oak tress. We ended up taking nice a break, soaking our feet in a cold spring under the shade of the trees. The community center in Warner Springs greeted us with open arms. Nancy was immediately on top of the blister turmoil and brought out a tub of hot water and Epsom salt.We are so lucky some of the folks in Warner Springs got together this year to help the PCT hikers. In past years most hikers stop in this small town to stay at the resort and celebrate their first 100 miles. Since the resort closed, a lot of hikers including ourselves were been disappointed because we were looking forward to spending the day there and resupplying at the stop and shop which also shut down. The people in Warner Springs who got together to create a mini "hiker stop and shop store" at the community center and fed us veggie burgers and breakfast in the morning are true trail angels. Thank you! We ended up taking a zero here to air out the feet while Gourmet, Astro, Thor and the rest of the gang headed out ahead. It was a sad day to see them leave but a new group of friends was right behind them.
     
     After a day off, the mind was restless and ready to hit the trail again. We bandage up the little piggies with mole skin and duck tape and started walking. It was another gorgeous morning strolling through the flower covered fields and scattered oak trees. That day we crossed a lot of springs and managed to keep our feet dry the whole time! Big plus. Unfortunately we ended up picking the wrong the water source to fill up at. The water was extremely oily on the surface with nasty floaties and bugs galore. Mmm... We tried our hardest to ration out our "good water" before we drank the over treated bleach water. We may have dehydrated ourselves just a little that day. That night we had trail mix for dinner and went to bed early so we could make it to Mikes water tank before the sun creeped up on us the next morning. We were parched by the time we got to there and praised the water tank God for saving us! We strolled down to Mikes(trail angel owner) compound to take a break and stumbled upon ASTRO and Kushy chilling out on the long back porch. I was amazed that Mike was no where to be found and his property open to passing thru-hikers regardless of his presence. AMAZING! There was an RV and a cabin with cots in the back along with soda and other hiker goodies. Originally we were only going to stay an hour, but we were convinced to treat and rest the blisters by a new crew that rolled in. Moose, Peru, Cruiser, Zippy and Mt. Dog came shortly after we did and we decided to wait out the heat and let the feet air out under the cool shade. Since Mikes tank we have been hiking on and off with our new friends all the way to Idyllwild. We've traveled through the extreme heat of the high desert to beautiful pine covered mountains and snow. It has been an unbelievable ride so far. Last night we got to hang out with our friend Gourmet! We love you Gourmet!!! He ended up hanging out in Idyllwild long enough for us to catch up. If we hadn't gotten a ride down to the kick off(the blog has been written over a couple days now) we would be hiking north with him tomorrow. We hadn't planned on going to the PCT Kick Off down in Lake Morena, but the more people talked about how informative it would be, the more we leaned towards the idea of going. Plus we had a minor ankle injury so it also gives us the opportunity to rest up. Alright we are being summoned to help cook dinner. We will be at  the kick off till Sunday and hope to hit the trail to Cabazon and Big Bear on Monday morning. Miss you all so much. Much love.

    Also wanted to say a big thank you to Beverly. She scooped a handful of us up and took us to Paradise Cafe to grub out and then proceeded to take us to a camp site for a shower; a TRUE luxury! She is an amazingly gentle spirit and we were blessed to have met this wonderful woman. Thank you Beverly!

   And ALSO ALSO to Richard who gave a ride down to kick off. You are already on your way to being a FUNtastic trail angel!!! Thank you so much for the ride and being such a wonderful human being. Big hugs!

Hellllo EVERYONE!!!
       
       We finally made it into Warner Springs(mile 109) yesterday. Wahoo! The beginning of the hike so far has been quite the roller coaster of weather, unbelievable scenery, fellowship, aches, pains and emotion. After visiting an old high school friend in San Diego, we set out to stay with our first trail angels Scout and Frodo. WOW! These two amazing people are incredibly generous with their time and money. Their whole operation, housing and catering to hiker needs is like that of a well oiled machine. After the introductions, Frodo got down business and showed us the hiker boxes(where people get rid of extra items also known as "weight"), water reports, computer, kitchen(with every cabinet labeled so we can help ourselves), and the laundry/postal station in the garage. As she toured us around the house, it finally hit us that what we had been planning to do was actually going to happen. 5:30 the next morning Frodo had a nice spread of scrambled eggs, pancakes and fresh cut fruit ready for our soon to be hiker bodies. Their friend(unfortunately whose name we forgot) drove us to the trail head that morning. She was another big heart whom we are grateful to have met. She took some pictures for us and sent us on our way.

       At the trail head we met our first hiker named Hot Wing. He got his trail name from doing the Appalachian Trail couple years back. He ended up hiking ahead while we took a couple more photos and stuck our finger in the hole at the gate between between Mexico and the US. Our first day was exhilarating AND extremely painful. There was so much to take in between our feelings of finally being on the trail and the gorgeous landscape of southern Cal. Our goal for the first day was to make it to Lake Morena which was 20 miles away from the border. That was a silly goal, BUT we rolled into Lake Morena with our head lamps on, in the rain, around 8:30 pm. It was unnecessary to push our bodies to the point where our feet felt like they were on FIRE, though it was nice to taste the satisfaction of completing our first goal. Plus we got to meet some more hikers that we might not have met later on. Our first experience sleeping in our new home(tent) was quite the adventure. We found out that our tent leaks from the sides, trickles down the mesh, and into our tub where we sleep. In the middle of the night we had to create some make shift lines to tie the sides of the tent down, to minimize the leakage. Welcome to camping!  The next morning we woke up to more rain. YEAH! Nothing like putting on a wet cold shoe on in the morning. We got a late start but we made it out eventually. That day we completed around 9 miles and based camped for the first time. It was a little scary being in the middle of  nowhere, in the mountains, by ourselves. We swore we heard some sniffing around the tent that night, which we counter acted with our own growling, followed by laughter. The next day we got up early to head to towards Mt. Laguna at mile marker 43. That day we ran into a few more hikers named Running Wolf and Cabbie. It's always uplifting to meet other hikers on the trail. It's kinda like meeting new friends on the first day of school. We ended up rolling into Mt. Laguna in the afternoon and went straight to the Supply and Sports store where we met Super Dave. He is our hero and we love him!!! Miss you Dave! He greeted us with a warm smile and hot chocolate. Between his wood burning stove and the hot drink in our hands, we were in hiker heaven. He ended up giving the us the news that there was a snow storm blowing in and they were expecting more than a foots worth of snow the next day. We decided to camp it out that night and save money before we stayed at the lodge. It was definitely one the coldest nights so far. The next morning we woke up to frost on the in and outside of our tent. We scrapped that sucker down like it was our car and we were heading to work. We were expecting to wake up to gray skies but the sun was shining and the sky blue. What to do? We packed up and met Dave at the store to figure things out. We didn't want to waste a day of hiking but we also didn't want to get caught in the storm. We decided we would slack pack(day hike with a light pack) 10 miles to Pioneer Mail and hitch back to the Store. The hike was absolutely beautiful til about 6 miles in. The trail around the mountain ridge over looked the desert and as the clouds rolled in, it turned the landscape into a shade of dark green, leaving the desert floor highlighted from the sun. It was incredible. AND THEN the sleet hit. It was a relentless 4 miles of pelting icy rain. We were completely drenched and freezing cold from the waist down because we didn't put our rain pants on. Lesson learned! We finally made it to Pioneer Mail around 3 in the afternoon and got reception about a quarter mile up the road where we called SUPER Dave to rescue! For the next half hour we waited, hunkered down in an out house, jumping up and down to keep hypothermia at bay. Super Dave came just in time to save us. We thawed out our bodies by his wood burning stove with a cup of his famous hot chocolate. It was the best feeling in the world! For the next two days we were stuck in a cute little lodge with the most most amazing cafe down the street. The inside of this log cabin diner resembled what it would have looked like over 60-70 years ago. And the food was an amazing mixture of gourmet and home cooking. It was the perfect antidote to an exhausting start of the PCT.

Time is running out for the computer so we will have to continue this later. To sum this up we will be continuing onto to Idyllwild tomorrow, feet permitting. We have some serious blister situations going on right now. Yikes! Fortunately the people at the community center in Warner Springs have been taking good care of us. Hope you all are doing great. Keep us in your thoughts. Miss you guys.
     Signing out, Cool Ranch and Cap-i-tan.

"A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees. The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves." –Amelia Earhart

   We have heard about the generosity from “trail angels”(people who live along the trail that volunteer to assist PCT hikers), but it has been amazing to witness the response we have gotten from our friends, family and complete strangers who want to provide us with their help too. We are so grateful to have such wonderful people in our lives that desire to give their support. Last night Papa Rich handed us a paper clipped wad of money from a co worker of his; a complete stranger to us. It’s hard to find the words to express how we feel. These acts of kindness are inspirational and heartwarming. It feeds ours spirit with much love to know that people whom we've never met, along with our loved ones, are showing this much interest and concern for our overall well being. Thank you all for the loving energy. Namaste.