Breakfast. Hot breakfast. Eggs, sausage and pancakes, all piping hot and slathered with salsa, butter and maple syrup. Hot coffee. Bottomless hot coffee. After a reasonable night of sleep with the ill-timed laundry of the previous night shoved in my waistband to dry, this was my sole motivation to get out of bed this morning. We did OK in the snooze department (3 snoozes), scrabbled all our things together and got on the trail. It was a cold and overcast morning, though the 20% chance of rain we heard the night before had not materialized in our particular microclimate. I was extra-cold from not eating a proper dinner the night before (on account of our late/lazy zero day schedule), so I supplemented my normal breakfast of randomly crumbled pop tarts with a cold, rock-hard snickers bar several miles in. We hiked through rolling grasslands separated by divides covered in chaparral, with the wind beating at us at a constant 20mph southeast. Erin was fine with the temperature, but I was still underenergized and cold so I put on my wind shirt for the first time. I was impressed - at 2.3 oz, and about half the size of a salt shaker when compressed, the Mont-bell tachyon anorak did a great job of snugging up and keeping the cutting breeze at bay. After several miles, we reached Eagle Rock - which looks like an eagle perched in its eyrie, wings readying for takeoff.
Erin scooting Across the landscape towards Warner Springs.
We took some compulsory photos with the bird-rock and kept moving through the dry prairie to the famed Warner Springs community center. A pleasant descent along a laughing creek, with an ancient valley and live oak canopy was interrupted twice by large herds of cattle. The munching dullards lazily grazed their way across the trail, completely unapologetic about their presence. I shooed them along, and we ambled in to the Warner Springs Community Center in good time, covering the 8+-mile stretch in just over 3 hours, breaks included.
The Warner Springs Community Center is nothing short of remarkable. After the failure of the Warner Springs Ranch resort, which was meant to be a luxury getaway for San Diegans, residents of the tiny hamlet opened up the community center as a stopover point for thru-hikers. They offer breakfast, lunch, laundry and Internet access in an air-conditioned portable building as a fundraiser for the local K-12 school, yet everything is free (donations suggested, and in my mind mandatory unless a cougar stole your wallet). We met up with a great number of hikers we'd been passing back and forth since the start, with Tracy & Ingrid, Atlas, Diego (Sierra Bum), Spoon Man, Marshall, Werewolf, and other familiar characters lounging around. It had rained on them the night before, while Erin and I were clean and dry. I wolfed down my breakfast of sausage, eggs and pancakes, and then helped Erin finish hers. My parents arrived, took a look around at all the scruffy and well-soiled hikers, and gave us a ride out to Ballast Point Brewing Co., where we quenched our thirst for beer.
My dad sampling the fruits of labor at Ballast Point.
Erin and I took some much-needed showers at the harborside hotel my mom had picked out, and we were off to dinner at Cucina Urbana on Banker's Hill in San Diego. After several delicious primi, I had a delicious short-rib pappardelle that filled my bottomless stomach. We retired to the hotel room, where we set about unpacking, sorting, blogging, and performing the litany of other tasks that are not feasible during the actual hike. We slept on a fold-out bed that was only marginally more comfortable than the ground, and certainly worse for the back. Still, the sleep was good.
Coolest critter of the day: it was nice to see the horned lark's out in the pastors, as they were much smaller than the western meadowlarks that I was used to. Though it was not alive, the Eaglerock was still quite cool in the fact that it related to a crater very realistically.
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