Day 8: Mile 109- "I believe of magic"

Trail Angel (noun): A kind hearted individual who goes out of their way to perform trail magic; unprecedented good deeds, usually in the form of items of luxury or necessity, to hikers on the trail.

Well yesterday we passed 2 great milestones, we did our first 20+ mile day, as we hiked 21 miles from Scissors Crossing to Barrow Springs and we also surpased the 100 mile mark.

But more important than that, I think, are the things we are learning on the trail.  I had heard before we came out here that hiking the PCT will restore your faith in humanity and already I can see that it's true. I'm talking about trail magic, people. It's real. Believe it.

I know Jesse touched on this in his post, but I really wanted to get this point across. Despite what you may think, there are great people out there. People who see others with seemingly unatainable goals, walking from Mexico to Canada and instead of calling them crazy, they do whatever they can to help them accomplish it. The last few days have been full of magic. We had to do nothing more than walk to the side of the road before a nice lady pulled over and drove us into town where we were welcomed with open arms by the locals and given free lunch followed by LITERALLY the best apple pie I've ever had. Then, after an unnecessary 5 dollar discount on the price of my new monocular (after leaving my binoculars under a tree about 30 miles earlier), we were again picked up at the side of the road without even having time to put out our thumb.

Once we got back to the trail we hiked another few miles of a 28 mile "waterless stretch" to find 50 gallons of fresh water waiting in a cache for us. Water unnamed heroes had hiked all the way in there and left for us, not even expecting a thank you. You would think that would have to be the end of the magic right? Think again, as we pushed on to Barrow Springs we began seeing signs on the trees, motivating us to go on with the promise of cold beer and oh did they deliver. We got there to find RVs set up around a roaring fire, hotdogs, chilli and ice cold beers basically being forced on us. It nearly brought a tear to my eye. This morning, once we woke up we were welcomed back to the RVs for some fruit, bagels and coffee before we graciously thanked these great souls and hit the trail again.

And now we're in Warner Springs, where the community centre has opened it's doors to us, setting up a resupply shop for us, giving us access to showers, computers, cooking us burgers and allowing us a place to stay the night. I'd say I don't want to leave this place, but I've heard rumors of a Cinco de Mayo party being held for us 18 miles up the path.

So, folks, what I'm getting at here is take a lesson from the great trail angels of the PCT. Be good to the people around you, no matter who they are, because it feels good to be kind and it feels even better at the recieving end.  If the real world could be as close knit and caring as the PCT and the trial community, it would be a much more pleasant place to be. Trust me on this.

Happy Trails,
Mike


Also, me and Jesse are going to ocme up with a better system for our posts to avoid redundancy posting things twice. So stay tuned for that.