Friday August 29, 12.2mi/19.6km

Twelvemile Hot Springs (1156.6/5790ft) to Wells (1144.4/5660ft) (NV)

After I finished packing up camp, I took another quick soak in the hot springs. They were quite a bit more steamy in the cold morning air.

I backtracked the 2 miles down the canyon, back to the main route. It was pretty cold in the canyon and the sunlight wouldn’t be here for hours, I hiked with my gloves on for the first time.

I said goodbye to the resident guardians of the canyon, there was much mooing.

These old ranches always have the strangest trash and graffiti.

I roadwalked all morning, mostly on a paved road.

There was a little bonus hot spring, ThreeMile Hot Spring, located just off the paved road. It was right at the edge of private property, and it smelled strongly of sulfur, I decided to skip it and keep walking.

From there, the route follows increasingly better dirt roads all the way to the town of Wells. I appreciated not being on the paved road, but at one point I passed through a fence with a “no trespassing” sign facing the other way, so maybe I’d prefer the paved road. There was also a bunch of roadside trash, including an old Dodge Neon, and a pair of British Knights sneakers.

If I had also found an old bottle of Crystal Pepsi, that would be the 1990s trifecta. And of course, once you get near a town you start seeing all the antennas and communication infrastructure. These VOR antennas are pretty unique though, used for aviation navigation.

And apparently I crossed over the California Trail, a National Historic Trail.

That felt like a significant thing to cross, though it wasn’t mentioned in the guidebook. A mile later, and I was in town. Since I walked right by the grocery store, I did my resupply shopping first. All the motels are a mile away at the other end of town, and I didn’t want to walk back here again. Then I went to the library and updated my maps, I was trying to figure out a good route through the East Humboldt Mountains, apparently the original route is overgrown. I got some help from Not a Chance, and Eric/Krista who were all here earlier this summer. Then I hiked the mile across town to my room at Motel6 and had lunch at the Burger King next door. It was a relaxing day, I also had a meal at Subway and one at McDonald’s, and did some trip planning while a Harry Potter movie marathon played in the background.

I have three more days of hiking in Nevada, then I’ll have reconnected my steps in Lamoille. And then it’s off to California, to hike the Sierra section that I skipped back in May. It’s hard to believe this 2400 mile hike is almost done.

Thursday August 28, 25.0mi/40.2km

Stormy Wash (1181.6/6170ft) to Twelvemile Hot Springs (1156.6/5790ft) (NV)

It wasn’t windy last night and I had a glorious dry morning of hiking. Today was all roadwalking, even though it was a large gravel road, I only saw two cars all day.

I also saw this weird roadside scarecrow, dressed as a POS politician. Clearly, Nevada is not a fan either.

All morning it was beautiful clear skies, hiking South towards my next mountain range, the East Humboldts.

In the afternoon the clouds started to build, it seemed that the daily afternoon thunderstorms were back.

As I hiked closer to civilization, I was surrounded by ranches and private property. One of the few legal places to camp seemed to be at a hot springs. Perfect! This one was a 2 mile side quest, which I wouldn’t normally do, but I had the time and I needed to camp somewhere. Someone had built an interesting bridge.

It turned out to be one of my top five favorite hot springs of this trail. The entire creek was hot water!

This area is part of the failed Metropolis Project, a planned farming community in the early 1900s, which is now a ghost town. But some of the water infrastructure survived, and it made a lovely soaking spot, surrounded by rock canyon walls.

The water wasn’t too hot either, maybe only 105°F, and I sat in there for over an hour, watching the sunset.

I set up my tent across the little hot creek on a flat area, away from all the steam.

A couple showed up just after dark, maybe 8pm, and were super friendly and offered me some beverages and invited me to come soak again. I think they felt bad about keeping me awake at my camp spot, since they left less than an hour later. I fell asleep to the nice gurgling sounds of the hot springs creek.

Wednesday August 27, 22.4mi/36.1km

Mary’s River TH (1204.0/6390ft) to Stormy Wash (1181.6/6170ft) (NV)

It had rained pretty steadily throughout the night until about 4 am, I had to zip up the tent fly, which I almost never do because it makes it quite humid inside. When I packed up from camp, I heard running water so I went to investigate. Mary’s River was no longer bone dry!

There was a decent amount of water coursing down the creek, I was quite surprised. I left camp and hiked all day on various dirt roads, which started off as rough 4wd roads.

The clouds overhead had completely obscured the mountaintops, and looked a little threatening, but it never rained on me all morning.

For today, the route was primarily trending East, toward the morning Sun.

The dark clouds kept shifting and moving, which definitely kept my attention. They were also fun to watch!

The 4wd road was a little hilly. Finally, after a couple hours, I left the foothills and the road started to flatten out.

The section of trail is pretty dry, the guidebook says there are no water sources between my camp this morning and a creek 28 miles away. However, I found a cow pond….with a cow literally standing in the murky water. No thanks.

It was dry all morning but around noon the clouds started to sprinkle a little bit. There were no trees around for miles, just sagebrush, but I did find some shelter behind a giant tractor tire. It was a surprisingly comfortable lunch spot.

I sat there for a while, and apparently when I’m not moving, the cows don’t recognize me as human. They approached much closer than they normally would have.

After lunch I continued on down a better dirt road, it sprinkled lightly for a couple of hours, just enough to be annoying. The umbrella has been my most valuable piece of equipment for this section.

I had been hiking toward this mountain all day, apparently it’s called stormy Mountain. The last few hours of the day were nice dry walking, and I noticed the clouds were even starting to clear up.

My hiking distance was limited by the location of public land, so I hiked as far as I could and then stopped just before the boundary. It was actually a pretty decent spot amongst all the sagebrush.

Hopefully it’s not windy tonight, the bushes aren’t big enough to be a windblock.

Tuesday August 26, 24.0mi/38.6km

Pine Creek CG (x/6580ft) to Mary’s River TH (1204.0/6390ft) (NV)

I was excited to be in the mountains again, and it was a lovely morning of hiking on nice trails. I started off on some 4wd roads.

Pretty quickly, I hit the Wilderness boundary and I was on singletrack trail for the rest of the day.

My task for the morning was to climb up to a pass at 9,800 ft elevation, following the Jarbidge River. It was amazing to be able to appreciate all the views, in Idaho I would have been focused on not losing the vague trail.

Pretty soon I was up in the alpine climate, not much was growing up here.

I hadn’t looked closely at my map so I was surprised to see a tiny little alpine lake near the pass.

Apparently that was Jarbidge Lake. As I was climbing the final few switchbacks up to the 9800-ft pass, I noticed the clouds were moving in more thickly.

I came over the past and I saw that Cougar Peak to the North had already been swallowed by clouds.

And also Mary’s River Peak to the South. It was really cool watching all the clouds swirl around the mountaintops, and it really gives the scale of the mountain some context. I dropped down a tiny bit into a small valley, where I was able to refill my water.

Even way up here in the remotest part of the Wilderness, I was surprised to find nice trail.

Mary’s River Peak was absolutely swallowed in clouds, good thing I was going over the pass just to the left. Someone really took some time to delineate the trails up here.

I kept coming across large piles of poop, some poor animal was having a bad day. I’m not sure what the nature version of Taco Bell is.

I hiked over the final pass and started dropping down into the valley, and then it started to rain. Hard. I didn’t take any pictures for a couple hours, it was just too wet. Just before I dropped into the East Fork Mary’s River, the rain stopped and I had some nice views of the forest I was descending into.

I love these little Aspen forests, usually because they mean water and shade, although today both of those things are plentiful.

As I dropped lower into the valley, I could smell sheep. And then I saw them, hundreds of them.

They were quite curious, and a few would follow me at a distance. A mile later I came upon the shepherd with his dogs, he asked “¿ovejas?” and pointed uphill to where I had just come from. I answered his questions with a few sentences in Spanish with lots of details. He looked confused, and replied in a language that definitely wasn’t Spanish. And then I realized he was probably speaking Basque, and ovejas is one of the few words that overlap with Spanish. Oops. Once I got down to the Mary’s River Valley, the clouds had started to come back with rain.

The last couple hours of the day were right along the Mary’s River, which I had pictured being in a forest, but it was all hiking in sagebrush.

The last hour, the rain stopped and the sun was trying to come out but never quite did. Every time I had to cross the river, I had to hike through a wall of big leafy plants, which of course were soaked from the rain. Bleh. I made it to the trailhead by 6 pm, and just threw down my tent at the closest flat spot, I just wanted to get in my tent and be dry. It was an absolutely beautiful day of hiking but I could have done without the afternoon rainstorms.

Monday August 25, 8.2mi/13.2km

Jarbidge River (x/5650ft) to Pine Creek CG (x/6580ft) (NV)

I didn’t cover many miles today but I was productive in eating many calories and getting my resupply box. I had five more miles on the dirt road to get into the town of Jarbidge, which went by quickly.

I had sprinkles of rain for half an hour but otherwise perfect hiking weather. It was Monday in a small town, which means many things are closed, it was a quiet walk through the tiny town.

I went to the only place that was open on Monday, the Outside Inn, in which is a cafe/ bar/ Hotel/ slot parlor.

I decided to go big on breakfast and really load up the calories. Not pictured, a slice of blueberry pie and some key lime ice cream.

The owner and the only guy working the place on Monday was super friendly, it was initially easy to make conversation with Chase, though the more he talked, the more bigoted/racist he sounded. This place clearly catered to travelers, since I was also able to get a shower for $10 and charge my devices. And there was the option of laundry which I declined. Apparently there are a decent number of cross-country bicyclists, BDR dirtbike riders, and a dozen hikers to come through here every year. After breakfast I went across the street to the community Hall, to check out their historic displays.

There was also a neat little jail.

After sightseeing, I walked a block over to the Post Office, which is only open 11-3 on Monday, Wednesday, Fridays.

I grabbed my resupply box which had been sitting there for a few months, because I mailed it before I had changed my hiking plans to hike Idaho southbound. The PO lady was super chatty, and seemed to know a lot of stuff, but she kept repeating some of it, she said her brain hasn’t been the same since her stroke. As I was leaving the post office, a UPS van drove by, apparently she had driven by me a few days ago in the desert, and regretted not stopping to talk to me. She asked me some standard hiking questions and then complimented my legs on how muscular and tan they looked… I definitely didn’t expect that. I went over to the picnic tables in front of the firehouse, and packed my resupply food.

As I was walking out of town, another lady on an ATV was driving by with her dogs. She also stopped to compliment me on my legs.

Do the citizens of Jarbidge really value legs?! The exchange made me smile and laugh a little bit, it seemed like such a friendly town. Though by mid-afternoon I had my fill of socializing for the day and was happy to be hiking back into the Wilderness. Some jokester was in charge of the road signs around here.

I hiked only 3 miles out to the Pine Creek campground, a free USFS campground.

It’s always nice having a table to sit at and eat dinner. I thought I was getting to camp at 5pm, but really it was only 4pm since now I’m back in Nevada, which is Pacific time. Oops. So I read some of my book and went to bed early.

Sunday August 24, 21.0mi/33.8km

Jarbidge River Overlook (8.2/5600ft) to ICT Southern Terminus (0.0/5990ft) (ID) to Jarbidge River (x/5650ft) (NV)

I was awake again at 5:30 and hiking before 6am, this time it wasn’t for heat reasons but because I was very thirsty and wanted to get to water sooner.

It was a flat easy 5 miles to the junction to Jarbidge canyon.

Today was a very cloudy day so the sunrise was muted and a little strange looking.

From the Jarbidge canyon junction, it was another 2 miles to the southern Terminus of the Idaho Centennial Trail.

The Southern Terminus of the ICT is, of course, at the state line with Nevada. Which means there is a fence there and a marker, and apparently also a cow.

I had to get a photo by the marker, it’s just an orange metal post in the middle of the desert. Not quite as scenic as the northern Terminus of Priest Falls.

I finished taking photos, said goodbye to the cows, and backtracked the 2 miles to the Jarbidge canyon junction.

Back at the junction. I took the dirt road down into the canyon, which was surprisingly scenic.

A couple miles later I was at the bottom of the canyon, in a tiny village called Murphy Hot Springs. There were probably a couple dozen little houses, some gardens, and some kitschy signs.

I couldn’t access the Jarbidge River right away, due to all the private property. But a guy out doing some yardwork saw me walking, and offered me some water from his spigot. Very nice! I wasn’t looking forward to having to use my ruined filter, it’s been super slow ever since filtering all that cow water. I surprised myself and drank a whole liter almost instantly, and then refilled another 3 liters for the 15 miles to Jarbidge. The rest of the day was hiking along the creek.

There were three little BLM campgrounds along the way, somebody had left a beer on one of the picnic tables. Too bad it was an IPA. Pass.

I had lunch at Jarbidge forks, which is where all the whitewater rafters and kayakers put into the river. It’s supposed to be a difficult and technical river, I can’t imagine anyone rafting this, it looked slow and shallow.

I spent the rest of the afternoon hiking very gradually uphill on a dirt road towards the town of Jarbidge. I could have easily hiked to town today, but the post office is only open on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. So I took my time enjoying all the scenic hoodoos along the way.

I found a great little camp spot right next to the Jarbidge River, which is really more of a creek, but it’s great to see water again.

It was only 4pm so I relaxed and swam in the creek, took a nap, read my book, and then it was finally dinner time. I was so focused on getting to water this morning, I didn’t really process that I had finished hiking across Idaho. It was a great state to see up close and on foot, and I think overall it’s an underrated place to explore. In Idaho, the Hot Springs Trail followed the ICT, but now that I’m in Nevada, it will once again follow its own routing. It will take me about a week of hiking to re-connect my steps and arrive in Lamoille, the town where I left off back in June.

Saturday August 23, 30.3mi/48.8km

Bengoechea cabin ruins (38.5/4590ft) to Jarbidge River Overlook (8.2/5600ft) (ID)

Another early morning to beat the heat, it started off nice and chilly like usual.

I was hiking pretty briskly to get warmed up, once I wake up and get out of my tent, these early mornings are pretty cool.

Sunrise is coming…

I paused to get a photo of the actual sunrise, since I’m not usually awake to get sunrise photos.

I crossed over a pretty large dirt road, it seemed to be the access point to the Bruneau River. I think this is where the rafters put in, for rafting trips. There was even a nice map & sign.

It stayed mercifully cloudy all morning and I was very thankful for the reasonable temperatures.

For this entire desert section, the trail is entirely on two-track dirt roads. I thought the maze of roads would be confusing but the trail is actually really well signed.

I stopped and had lunch in Poison Creek wash, which had the only tree I had seen since yesterday. Even though it was cloudy and cool, it felt like a special treat to eat lunch under a juniper tree. After lunch I climbed out of the wash and unfortunately the clouds started to disperse.

By 1pm the clouds were almost completely gone and I hiked under my umbrella the rest of the afternoon. By late afternoon the Jarbidge Mountains were coming into view.

It was pretty hot at the end of the afternoon, so I found a tall sagebrush and made some umbrella shade, taking a break for a couple of hours until 6 pm. I continued on for another hour after my long break, and I noticed these strange red tanks. I was pretty low on water and got my hopes up, but they were dry.

I’m not sure what animal those tanks would be used for, I haven’t seen any evidence of cows today. Perhaps antelope, I’ve seen like eight herds of antelope today.

At the end of the day I came to the Jarbidge River Overlook, and enjoyed looking 800 feet down to the river below.

There is an alternate route, which scrambles down the rocky talus fields to the river, but I had no interest in making some rattlesnake friends. I camped up on the rim nearby, with nice views of the Jarbidge Mountains to my South. Tomorrow I have about 7 miles to the ICT Southern Terminus, then I’ll backtrack a couple miles and head down to the Jarbidge River.

Friday August 22, 25.4mi/40.9km

Bruneau Desert (63.9/3780ft) to Bengoechea cabin ruins (38.5/4590ft) (ID)

Another 5:30 wakeup and on the trail just after 6am, it was pretty chilly.

It felt good to be moving when it’s cold, the heat makes me lethargic. After a mile the sun came up and my hands started to thaw.

The early morning light really makes some amazing pictures.

Pretty soon the sun was higher in the sky and it was no longer cold, and by mid-morning it was a little too warm. The trail followed a bunch of old dirt roads in this section, thankfully there are markers at each junction, it’s easy to space out and miss a turn.

By late morning I was heading down into a small canyon for Clover Creek, where there’s a little oasis called Winter Camp.

Apparently it’s a tiny parcel of private property surrounded by BLM land, so you have to sign into their register before proceeding.

It was exciting to see some trees again, it feels like I hadn’t seen trees in forever. I miss my arboreal friends.

Winter camp is also a water source which is a critical one, coming at the end of a 40 mile dry section and starting the next 45 mile dry section. But I didn’t see any water in the creek. Ummm…

The dirt road paralleled the creek for a mile, and I kept a very close eye on the creek, which looked dry every spot I checked.

There were a bunch of old junk cars and farming equipment scattered around, and also some neat old stone buildings on the property.

I was almost at the other end of the property and getting quite worried, since I hadn’t seen any water yet. I know of only two other hikers that have come through here in August, both of them had flowing water in the creek. I crossed the creek on a small road bridge, and underneath the bridge there were small stagnant puddles. Hooray.

I filtered my maximum capacity which is 7 liters, to get me to the next water source 45 miles away. Filtering took a long time as the water was quite silty and it was definitely killing my filter. To hide the cow flavoring, I added some Crystal light and also a bunch of little salt packets I got from town.

My hands were tired from squeezing the filter bottle, and by noon it was time to leave the comfort of the shade and climb out of the canyon.

The roads were pretty nice all day, no annoying tumbleweeds clogging the wheel tracks like yesterday. And I had pretty sweet views of the Bruneau canyon, a few miles off to my right.

But mostly the theme of the afternoon was surviving the heat, my umbrella was a lifesaver both for hiking and taking breaks. Most of the bushes here are tiny, but I was able to find a tall one that made some shade and also became an umbrella holder.

I used the same strategy as yesterday, hiking most of the afternoon, but taking a break during the hottest part of 3-5pm. Luckily around that same time, a few thin clouds moved in, which felt great.

At the very end of the day I had a small climb, and as I came over the rise in the hill I saw mountains to the south of me. Mountains! Those must be the Jarbidge Mountains in the Nevada, just over the border.

I ended up camping near a dilapidated old cabin. I bet these cabin walls would have provided some nice shade during midday.

I definitely noticed the higher elevation with the nighttime temperatures being colder. Hopefully tomorrow will be a cooler and cloudier day.

Thursday August 21, 26.6mi/42.8km

Snake River (90.5/2480ft) to Bruneau Desert (63.9/3780ft) (ID)

I was awake at 5:30 and enjoyed a view of the night sky while eating breakfast.

Packing up was faster than I expected and I was hiking just before 6am. I still had another mile and a half of roadwalking, and while I could see just fine in the pre-dawn light, I used my headlamp so cars could see me.

The temperatures were indeed nice and cool, probably 60°F. A short while later I had turned off onto a farming road, and the sun had risen.

The farming road only lasted an hour, and then for the rest of the day I was on brushy 2-track roads.

For part of the morning I was hiking through the Snake River bird sanctuary, and for another part of it, an Air Force bombing range. This sign was in the middle of nowhere, probably at the boundary of those two areas.

At least the trail was well marked.

As I weaved and turned through the desert. I connected and split from various different dirt roads. Some were better than others.

And for some reason part of the desert had been burned in this area, it looked very purposeful since the burn boundaries were very straight and defined.

By mid-afternoon it was starting to get pretty hot, and I arrived at the Bruneau overlook at 3pm, just in time to take advantage of the only shade around for miles.

The views were pretty sweet too, as the Bruneau River carved an 800-ft deep canyon.

It was rather shocking to be hiking across a flat grassy desert all day and then suddenly coming upon a giant gorge. To stay out of the Sun and heat, I sat in the shade of the bathroom for a couple hours and read my book.

By 5pm it had started to cool down slightly, so I hiked for another hour or so.

I made another 4 miles of progress before I decided to call it a day. Finding a campsite was not too difficult, since everything around here is flat. I found a spot where the grass was shorter, and I watched a nice sunset while my dinner was cooking.

Tomorrow will be another early wake up, to hike across more of the desert all day. Kinda feels like Groundhog Day.

Wednesday August 20, 3.9mi/6.3km

Hammett (94.4/2540ft) to Snake River (90.5/2480ft) (ID)

Despite getting most of my chores done yesterday, the morning was still busy packing up everything from the hotel room. I sampled the goldfish to make sure I liked the new flavor, it’s pretty amazing. I’m really looking forward to that snack on the trail.

I made the quick walk back to the downtown area, donated the book that I finished reading to a Little Free library, and then went to the Manhattan Cafe again.

After lunch I went to the park and started reading my new book, it was nice and shady under the ancient cottonwood trees. Then I went to the library for an hour to update some things on my blog, my caltopo maps, and some internet chores are just easier to do on a real computer. I had called the only local taxi service to pick me up from the library at 5pm and take me to the edge of town, where I would begin hitching back to Hammett. The driver was really interested in hearing about my summer adventures in Idaho, so she drove me all the way to Hammett. I gave her some extra for the gas money, and then ordered dinner at Lulu’s Cafe.

The camping in this section is a little sporadic, since there’s a bunch of private property. I knew I was only hiking 4 miles, so I took my time eating and didn’t leave the cafe until 7 pm. The roadwalk was perfectly flat and expectedly boring.

There was a couple miles of irrigated farmland.

And then the road got squeezed between the river and a cliff.

Watching the sunset over the Snake River was rather special.

Crossing the river felt like a unique moment, basically all the waterways in Idaho drain into the Snake River eventually.

It was actually perfect timing, I crossed the bridge just after sunset, so I was able to set up my tent just as darkness was approaching. I’m camped close to a road and I’d rather cars not see me, feels safer.

It’s basically 90 miles of relatively flat and shadeless trail to the Idaho/Nevada border, and I plan to get up early the next few days to start hiking in the darkness, while the temperatures are still cool.