Tuesday May 13, 20.6mi/33.2km

Nordhoff Ridge (68.0/4990ft) to Sespe Hot Springs (88.6/2680ft) (CA)

it was a cold night and since I zipped up the tent, it got pretty damp inside. I spent a little extra time drying it out and then got moving at 7:30.

I had a few more miles on the truck trail and I was mesmerized by the clouds blowing in from the ocean.

Sometimes the clouds would completely surround me.

And then all the sudden they would clear out and it would be blue skies. After an hour I came to the end of the truck trail road, and it became a regular hiking trail.

The trail stayed up on the ridgeline for another hour and I had more mesmerizing clouds.

I hiked over a small pass and then started to descend, down 3,000 feet to the Sespe River valley.

The trail started off nice enough, maybe just slightly overgrown, but I could still hike almost 3 mph. It also had these cool little retaining walls to hold it up on the steep hillsides.

As I descended further it got brushier, which was annoying but only slowed me down a little bit. And then the trail started to follow the streambed pretty closely, which is where the poison oak grows. So I spent an hour going slowly and dodging all the poison oak, it kinda felt like doing the moves in the matrix. I was so focused on the vegetation I almost didn’t notice this cool little tunnel.

Finally I was down at the Sespe River.

It was a wide river and generally had sandy banks so that made for easy hiking.

Pretty soon I came to the turn off for Willets hot springs, which was an easy half-mile hike uphill to a little protected canyon.

Someone had installed a round metal tank and piped the water directly into it which was really convenient. I sat and soaked for half an hour, and it felt really nice even though it was a hot day. I returned back to the main trail and the Sespe River.

I followed the river downstream for like 4 miles on a pretty good trail, and even saw a couple other groups of hikers. I saw barely any poison oak and even the repeated stream crossings were pretty easy. Towards the end of that stretch, I climbed high up on a bank and had an amazing view of the valley.

And of course the trail immediately descends right back down the other side.

I hiked another side trail up to Sespe Hot Springs, and since it was almost 7pm I decided to camp here.

As my dinner was cooking, I walked over to the steaming creek and soaked in one of the little rock pools that people had built.

What an amazing spot to be camping! I also met a young couple who was out on a three-day backpacking trip. Kylie and Parker are relatively new to backpacking but decided to celebrate their 3rd anniversary this way. Cool! And congrats guys.