4/24-25 Th-Fri. Zero Days

Chores, food resupply, showers, hydrate, hydrate , hydrate!  I can't seem to drink enough water which means I was pretty dehydrated. 

 Walking around town locating the Post Office, Deli, Grocery, Library etc. we were welcomed and drawn into conversation with shop keepers who had small tokens for hikers like mini bottles of water, the library had printed out the latest water report for hikers to take for free. Idyllwild is a really nice town.   It is laid out at the base of the rugged San Jacinto Mts. which rise up steeply from the back of the town providing a stunning backdrop.  There are old, gnarled oak trees all around town mingling with Sugar and Ponderosa Pines. It's a beautiful place geared to welcome PCT hikers. 

Peggy had been in contact with a lady who had offered to pick us up from Idyllwild and take us with her back to Lk Morena for the PCT kickoff Friday- Sunday (4/25-4/27). By 9:00am we'd not gotten a call from her so we called around eventually locating a trail angel named Dave who suggested we might want to rent a car ourselves, he offered to drive us to Hemet 35 miles away so we could do that. He then offered to meet us on Sunday in Hemet to drive us back to the trail!  We didn't want to accept such an extravagant offer but he insisted it would get him out of a day of yard work and he'd enjoy the chance to do this for us!  So...10 minutes later we were on the road to Hemet with Dave, a gem of a trail angel, and by 11:00am we were driving ourselves to Lk Morena.

Arriving in Lk Morena around 4:00pm there were to be 1,000 hikers at the kickoff + vendors and forest service rangers as presenters. Tents were everywhere as well as hikers in clean clothes and those who'd just hiked in from the border 20 miles away, dusty, dirty, sweaty but happy to have completed the first 20 miles of their trek. 

I bought a new backpack belt that would fit me as I lost weight, keeping the weight of my pack on my hips instead of my shoulders. 

We had dinner, listened to a very informative talk by a Forest Service Ranger on how to store your food in bear country and bears habituation to humans (humans,  and bears who are not afraid of them never mix well & usually ends with the bear's destruction).   Then a compilation of short films by PCT hikers which we all enjoyed. By now it was cold, windy and dark so Peggy & I turned in and went to sleep.