Friday May 30, 19.1mi/30.7km

Wilfred Creek (607.0/7630ft) to Benton Town Park (625.1/5380ft) (CA) +1.0mi forgotten gear

I had a quiet night in my campsite, with no small animals scurrying around. My first task for the day was to hike up 2,500 ft on a steep hill, hiking XC.

It woke me up pretty quickly as I had to pay attention to weaving around all the different clumps of sagebrush. Once I was at the top I had an amazing view back to the Sierras, where I started in Mammoth a couple days ago.

I had a little more climbing to get to the top of the ridge.

And then thankfully I was hiking on a road, after all that XC climbing.

Surprisingly, there were still little patches of snow remaining up here at 9,800 ft elevation.

It was just a super scenic walk and I could see the road weave along the ridgeline for miles.

After a couple miles I came to a little forest, it was nice to have shade now that the sun was out in full force. Some of the trees looked very ancient.

Nice forested walk.

As I gradually descended, I left the forest and was back in the sagebrush.

I love looking at maps, and the view from up here into the valleys up ahead was like staring at a map.

I wasn’t sure what the white section was, perhaps some salt flats. The scenery up close was interesting too, these tiny purple flowers were everywhere.

After a couple hours I left the dirt roads and descended a couple thousand feet, again XC, though this time much easier and with less brush.

At the bottom of the descent I joined up with another dirt road, and had a pleasant but hot walk through the valley.

Pretty soon that road ended and I was on paved Highway 120 for a couple of hours. It was actually fairly enjoyable as there were almost no cars driving this road. And there were these cool rock hoodoos along the way.

I always see these elevation signs on road trips but I’ve never seen one on road walk before. Neat!

About halfway through the roadwalk I came to the historic town of Benton Hot Springs.

All the buildings looked ancient and historic and closed, I assume it used to be a mining town, but not sure. The one building that looked modern and open was the Inn at Benton Springs, which is a Hot Springs resort.

I stopped in and chatted with the staff for quite a while and got some ice cold water and lemonade. The three of them seemed very interested in the Hot Springs Trail that I was hiking, and one of them had even bikepacked across the length of California. Cool group. They were getting ready for a busy weekend of guests, so I left to finish my roadwalk. Unfortunately I forgot a hiking pole so I had to turn around and that added a mile to my day. I almost never carry hiking poles, as they don’t seem to have much use besides river crossings and steep downhills. Finally reunited with my hiking pole, I continued the roadwalk and said hi to lots of friendly faces.

It was pretty hot on the pavement with no shade, but I pressed on to Benton.

There are two convenience stores. One of them was already closed for the day, so I went to the Smalley’s convenience store just a couple minutes south of the main junction. Lots of cold temperature calories ensued.

It was nearing the end of the day, and I had to find a place to camp locally. I have a package at the post office which I will pick up tomorrow morning, which means I can’t leave this town quite yet. The guy at the convenience store said sometimes people camp in the Town Park, so I went over to check it out.

It was a pretty nice park with grass and shady trees, tables, and bathrooms with running water. I felt so civilized to sit at a proper table while eating dinner! I did all my usual evening chores, and even found an outlet to charge my phone. I didn’t really want to camp in the park in case people came in during the night, but I decided to camp on the other side of the fence from it and set up my tent after sunset. It’s technically a weekend, but this is a tiny town of only 200 people, so I don’t expect any rowdiness in the park tonight.