Day 7: (7.9 miles)
mile 101.1 – 109 / 3455 ft – 4065 ft

So we left Barrel Springs and made our way to Warner Springs. It was a fairly “easy” walk, even for tired and battered feet. The scenery was refreshing and completely different from what we had already walked through.

The big meadows and majestic oak trees conjured up childhood memories of venturing out on my own, hiking in the nearby county park and “summiting” Coyote Peak on a regular basis. 

Along the way is Eagle Rock where we took in a photo op stacking our backpacks to steady our camera on the stick pic (an attachment to the base of our camera that allows us put our camera on the end of a hiking pole so as to take “selfies”) so everyone can be in the picture. 

One more gate, well actually two and we arrive at the Warner Springs Community Center. The community is awesome and they are doing a stellar job supporting the PCT thru-hikers. For a nominal fee you can shower, have breakfast and/or burgers, all the while providing free coffee, cookies (we threw money in the donation jar), access to the internet via onsite computers and power strips to charge your electronics.  Once our neighbors arrived to shuttle us home for a much needed Nero and Zero, we made our goodbyes, swapped contact info and wished each other “Happy Trails”… Until we meet again. 

And so began the ride home back to “reality”.