Friday June 13, 21.3mi/34.3km

Birch Creek (860.1/6760ft) to Toquima Ridge (881.4/6850ft) (NV)

I slept great in my new tent and even though it was a little damp in the valley, The fabric didn’t stretch and sag. This sil-poly material seems so much better. It was a nice morning of downhill hiking.

I descended through Birch Creek Canyon. I loved seeing the cliffs and rock faces.

After a couple miles, the canyon wall started to disappear and I was entering the main valley, which apparently is called Big Smoky Valley.

That’s the same name of the valley where I was almost a week ago so that’s a little confusing. A little while later I left the National Forest.

Looking back on the Toiyabe Mountains that I spent last week traversing.

The rest of the morning I spent crossing the valley, initially following a fence line.

And then just following a perfectly straight, ancient road for a couple hours.

I started seeing some hoof marks on the ground, and I saw burros in the distance.

I arrived at Spencer Hot Springs a little after noon, so I thought it was a perfect time to have lunch. Another large group had just arrived on their ATVs, and though their dogs had initially tried to scare me off, they were very friendly people. An ice cold Coors light never tasted so good.

We talked for a while, they are camped in the same valley I was in a few days ago, seems like they’re having a great weekend. I passed around my little map of the Hot Springs Trail to explain what I was doing, some people seemed shocked and/or impressed that I would walk that far. Fun times!

Soon they were headed out to their next stop, I said goodbyes and then went to check out the hot spring.

The water seems nice and hot, probably 115°F. It was kinda a hot day and there was no shade, so I didn’t feel like getting all the way in, I just put my legs in. I was there for probably an hour relaxing and eating my lunch and listening to an audiobook. Eventually I packed up and on my way out noticed there were other constructed pools, so I checked out one of the other ones too.

This one was much cooler, maybe only 90°F. It was also surrounded by burros, who seemed both shy and very curious at the same time.

From there I had a pretty chill afternoon of following an ancient dirt road, and then some surprisingly easy XC hiking up and over the Toquima mountains.

Pretty quickly, I was on top of the ridge.

I followed that for a little while through some nice pinion pine forest, and then started to descend the other side.

It was fun to descend while walking in a wash, feels like forever since I’ve hiked in a wash. I’m not sure why this trail doesn’t use them more often. There are two other mountain ranges I will be crossing over briefly during this section. I’m hiking East during this section, which means I’m going against the grain of the mountains. I found a nice little camp spot under some pinyon pines, and of course in a wash. It seems nobody ever comes up here since there are no roads or trails, so it should be a quiet night.