May 10

306-329

Our first stretch of the day is a little ridge walk that leads us into a backcountry hot springs.

We arrive at 7am, and we were fortunate to have the springs to ourselves. It is a massive departure from the last time I was here, where I essentially walked into the Woodstock festival. An excerpt from my journal in 2013:

“The hot springs consist of a large complex of stone pools next to a creek in a small canyon. I notice a lot of people passed out on the hillside around the springs, beer cans littered around them. This is a very popular destinations for locals. One of the first things I see upon entering the hot springs complex is a group of 5 topless girls,who look to be in their late teens or early twenties, soaking in one of the pools. They are all sitting around a man in his mid to late 50’s, impossibly tanned, with a flowing mane of thick blond hair. Upon seeing me he gets out of the pool, exposing his impossibly large, and deeply tanned, genitalia. He slowly ( far slower than necessary) wrapped some sort of tattered loincloth around himself and walked towards me. He introduced himself as ‘Hippy Dave’ and that he was the ‘Mayor’ of the Hot springs. I greet him and look towards the women. He sees me trying to make sense of the scene, shrugs his shoulders, looks back at the girls and says, “Chicks, man.” I say, “yeah,” as if I have some sort of idea what he is talking about”

This time there is no mayor and no groupies.

The pools are hot, and we alternate between the hot pool and dipping into the cold river. We then hike along a strange connector section of trail that takes us along a highway, through a spillway for a dam, and amongst gravel pits and industrial equipment.

By mid day temperatures crept up near 90 degrees and we both drank over a gallon and a half of water during the day. We try to imagine and manifest someone pulling over and giving us a cold beer. Alas- no luck.

In the evening we walk along the edge of a massive reservoir. From far away, it looks gorgeous. As we get closer we notice garbage littering all the small beaches and warnings of toxic algae. We elect not to swim.

As we are searching for a campsite we read comments from other hikers noting that there is a marauding bear in the area. Many hikers have had their tents and backpacks shredded from the bear stealing their food. Wanting to avoid a recurrence of our tent shredding experience on the PNT we elect to camp in the shower stall of a front country campsite.