Thursday May 29, 19.5mi/31.4km

Laurel Creek (587.5/7430ft) to Wilfred Creek (607.0/7630ft) (CA)

I left my little campsite in the pine forest and immediately entered sagebrush terrain.

I had a pleasant roadwalk for a couple of hours, even passing by a little duck pond.

After crossing Highway 395, I noticed an increase in traffic on my little road, it seems everybody was driving to some hot springs in the area. I took a little detour to follow Hot Creek for a half mile to check it out.

After descending a couple of switchbacks, I had a pretty nice view of the river canyon.

I hiked along the river for a little while, and there were tons of people fishing for trout. Apparently this is the number one trout stream in California.

I talked to one guy who shared a bunch of information about fly fishing, types of fish, and the history of this creek. I continued on and soon came to the hot springs that give the creek its name.

From this point downstream, the water is too hot for fish and I saw no more people, except for one guy Mike. He said I looked familiar and that he commonly helps people on long distance hikers, he is currently supporting his friend Andrea on her hike from the East coast to the Oregon coast. We chatted for a bit and he sent me on my way with a nice cold Coors light. Maybe a mile later, I arrived at my first soakable hot spring for the day, Shepherd Hot springs.

It was very nice and there were a couple other people there, including a guy Randy who maintains a lot of the hot springs in Nevada. He was very knowledgeable and knew all of the hot springs and little towns that I will be visiting in Nevada next month. And he had built this neat contraption that cools down the water, since many of the hot springs are above 110° F, which is way too hot.

A couple other people showed up just as I was leaving, and they offered to take my photo. That’s a rare occurrence on this trail!

I hiked on, using an old dirt road and enjoying the amazing snowy mountain scenery.

And 10 minutes later I was at the next hot spring, Crab Cooker.

This one was way too hot to even put my feet in, probably how it got its name. I sat on the little bench there and ate lunch, and after awhile a couple showed up and offered me an ice cold Pepsi. Nice.

I moved on and enjoyed a short bit of XC hiking before arriving at Hilltop Hot springs. That one was a great temperature, but I only spent a few minutes there as a large group had just arrived. All of these hot springs are easily accessible by car, so there’s people everywhere. I hiked for another hour and came to my last one, Wild Willie’s hot springs.

This one was the most developed, it had a specially built parking area, boardwalk, and half a dozen rock tubs.

The temperature was perfect and I sat there for a while enjoying the hot bubbling mineral water. From there, I had an easy little XC hike to the Owens River, most of it was on dried mud flats, short grassy areas, and even some desert pavement.

Once I got close to the river I had to duck under a barbed wire fence, there was a fence on each side of the river and that was probably the hardest part of the river crossing. The river itself had some deep channels on the outer curves, but there were plenty of straight river sections that were shallow. I found a crossing spot with some gravel bars that made it quite easy.

Looking back, at where I had just crossed:

It was kinda the ideal crossing spot, never more than shin deep, and a nice gravelly bottom without any mud. From there I had a couple hours of hiking on dirt roads.

I was gradually climbing up toward the next mountain range, that I would cross over tomorrow. When the road ended by a creek, I stopped and camped.

It’s definitely convenient to camp near a water source, but usually hikers avoid these spots as they also attract mice, insects and other wildlife. Hopefully no visitors tonight!