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.