Tuesday September 16, 20.7mi/33.3km

VVR (538.2/7660ft) to Fish Creek Valley (558.9/6880ft) (CA)

I was awake at 6 am, along with a few of the other hikers I could hear rummaging in their tents. I said goodbye to everyone and left VVR just after 6:30, it definitely vortexed me in yesterday.

After hiking through another confusing campground, I re-entered the Wilderness on a nice trail.

There was a mile of burned section, but not too bad, mostly just brushy. I climbed up into a little valley called Graveyard meadow, which actually felt pretty cheerful on this nice sunny morning.

Seems like something called The Devil’s Bathtub trail would have a hot springs, but I checked my maps and it didn’t.

It was a nice hike all morning, Upper Graveyard meadow was even more wide open.

As I climbed higher towards Goodale pass, the terrain became that classic High Sierra sparse forest.

The climb up to Goodale Pass gained about 2,000 ft but was pretty easy with all the switchbacks. Looking back into the valley with Graveyard Meadows:

Most passes are rocky on top, this one was flat and sandy, which was a nice surprise.

Looking ahead towards the mountains around Mammoth Lakes, the town where I will be finishing in a couple of days.

Since it was a warm sunny day, with perfect blue skies, I decided to take a little nap on top of the pass.

I even had a faint Verizon signal, so I checked the weather and my messages. The wildfire smoke that people kept complaining about never seemed to materialize, so unless I see smoke tomorrow I will have escaped it entirely on this hike. The descent down from the pass was pretty gradual and easy.

There were even a couple of alpine lakes that I hiked by, but didn’t trail near enough to actually go swimming. This was Lake of the Lone Indian.

After dropping down to 9000 ft elevation, the trail just stayed there for miles and miles, and I enjoyed hiking through classic High Sierra forest.

It definitely seemed like Autumn was coming, these little ground cover plants are usually green.

I’m not sure what they’re called, I’ve only seen them at higher elevations.

After like 5 miles of amazing trail, I dropped down steeply to Fish Creek Valley. For no apparent reason, this part of the trail was a complete mess, with dead trees down everywhere. They weren’t burned, they didn’t look like beetle-kill trees, it was just a strange mystery. Stepping over or around 100 downed trees is slow progress, but eventually I made it down to the bottom of the valley and the Ida Bell Hot Springs. It was a short side quest off the main trail, and I had to climb uphill a little bit, and search for them in a meadow. The first one was actually pretty nice.

I soaked in that first one for what felt like forever, and then I went to explore to find the other soaking pools. I managed to find a second one.

I even spotted a third one, but I didn’t feel like crossing a swampy meadow to go see it. There’s supposed to be a few more pools up here, but the first two were more than enough for me. I had planned on camping here and soaking again in the morning, but then I saw a bear sniffing around one of the hot springs. I guess bears need a good relaxing soak too? It was my second day in a row of both seeing a bear and soaking in hot springs. Life is odd. I don’t camp near bears, so I got back on the main trail and continued on a mile, and setup camp.

It’s my last night camping in the wilderness, tomorrow night I will be either in Red’s Meadow resort, or in the town of Mammoth Lakes.

Monday September 15, 9.9mi/15.9km

Ward Lake CG (528.3/7320ft) to VVR (538.2/7660ft) (CA)

It was a quiet night of camping in the campground, but then at 6:30am a work truck came banging down the potholed road, good thing I was already awake. I finished the roadwalk amongst the rock formations and cliffs, and didn’t see any other cars.

After a couple of hours I arrived at Mono Hot Springs, a group of soaking pools in the wilderness. The first one I came to was pretty far uphill from the river, but also the perfect temperature.

The next soaking pool was a nice little concrete structure, but the water was cooler. Maybe only 95°F /35ºC.

I continued downhill, and the third pool by the riverside had a woman in it, so I just continued to cross the river.

After getting temporarily stuck in a campground, I figured out the exit and came out at the Mono Hot Springs resort.

I had been looking forward to the cafe all morning, but the door was locked when I tried to go inside. I never know what day it is, but eventually I was able to confirm that unfortunately it was Monday.

So instead I went to their General Store, and bought a homemade breakfast burrito and some drinks to enjoy out front in the oversized rocking chairs.

After I finished second breakfast, I went across the road to the bath house where I enjoyed the $10 unlimited shower.

I thought it was cool they give the chemical analysis of their hot spring water.

The bathhouse was fancy, it even had a massage therapist on site a few days a week, and lots of little kitschy decorations.

By 11am I had run out of things to explore at the resort, so I continued on and climbed a thousand feet uphill toward Lake Edison. Back in the wilderness!

The trail went by Doris Lake, which was really more of a large pond.

And then through Mono Meadows which was a nice little section of trail.

Then there was a mile of burned trail with lots of trees down, which only added to the effort of hiking uphill. As I was looking around for the trail, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, it was a bear!

He was pretty far away, but still cool to see a bear randomly sprinting across a meadow in the middle of the day. I emerged from the Wilderness onto a little road which led to VVR, Vermilion Valley resort.

Everywhere I go I keep seeing the name Denali on random objects.

VVR is a popular stop amongst PCT and JMT hikers, and I was really looking forward to getting a meal in their cafe. Unfortunately, they had decided to close early this season (they usually close September 30th). No reason was given, there was a handwritten sign on the door “Be back this afternoon”. I figured I could still buy a cold drink out of their little store, so I hung out for a few hours with the half dozen other hikers that were there. And a couple resident squirrels.

It was actually a really nice afternoon of chatting with other adventurers, and just the relaxing day I needed, before I finish this hike in a couple of days. A few people invited me along on their hikes, I don’t know if those were serious offers, but it was definitely tempting. And one woman was hiking a reverse GWL (Great Western Loop), completing the CDT first, and now hiking SOBO on the PCT… She had to skip the PNT, but still an amazing feat! The other hikers were waiting around to get their resupply boxes, and by 6pm no employee had returned yet, so I helped them get their boxes out of storage. Finally at 6:30pm, a woman returned and gave us free drinks. By then it was almost dark, and I decided to stay the night, and promised myself to get up early tomorrow and make up a few miles.

Sunday September 14, 21.9mi/35.1km

Evolution Creek (x/9480ft) to Ward Lake CG (528.3/7320ft) (CA) +0.6mi Blayney Hot Springs

I left camp at 7am, and happily it was a little warmer than the past few days so I didn’t have to wear all my layers.

I enjoyed the feeling of being warm for maybe 30 minutes, and then I had to cross Evolution Creek, which definitely made my feet and legs numb.

But it was an easy crossing, not even shin deep. The last time I was here on the PCT, it was almost waist deep. I continued my descent down to the San Joaquin River and the morning warmed up nicely.

It seems like every morning I see a deer, but this one was tiny.

When the sunshine hit the valley floor, it instantly became much warmer and I was able to pack away my hat and gloves.

It was neat following the San Joaquin River, it had carved out these little canyons, and the river was quite loud.

After an hour of following the river, I apparently crossed out of Kings Canyon National Park, and into a wilderness!

I met a bunch of hikers at a junction here, they were all doing the popular “Two Lakes loop”, which starts near Bishop and goes over three passes. There are so many ways to explore the Sierras! A couple miles later I came to Muir Trail Ranch.

When I was on the PCT, I skipped this resupply stop since they charge $75 to hold your box of food, and it’s a little ways off that trail. But the Hot Springs Trail goes right through it, so I figured I would explore it.

They had a whole area set up for hikers, with picnic tables and tents, outlets for charging, and a sink for hand washing. And all the PCT hikers who mail their food here have to send it in a 5 gallon bucket, which results in a pile of buckets, haha.

And they had quite the extensive hiker box, since people always pack too much stuff and have to leave some food or gear behind. It was impressively organized, probably the best I’ve ever seen. Each bucket was a different category.

I pulled out some pretty good looking stuff out of the “snacks” bucket.

There were a couple other hikers there, who were pretty excited by the massive selection in the hiker boxes. I decided to go explore Blayney Hot Springs, just a couple minutes away. After an easy ford of a creek, I explored around a meadow to look for the hot springs.

They were easy enough to find, the first couple were a little murky, but the third one was nice with some rock benches.

After leaving Muir Trail Ranch, I spent the next mile on a confusing web of horse trails and old roads. But pretty quickly that narrowed down into a single, nice hiking trail.

Usually the bridges are built for function, but clearly this bridge was also built for aesthetics. A curved wooden bridge!

And the creek that it crossed over had one of the best swimming holes I’ve ever seen. Fortunately, it was a pretty warm afternoon so I was actually able to go for a quick swim.

I dried off pretty quickly in the warm afternoon sunshine, and had a nice hike along Florence Lake. Actually it was more above the lake, I never got close to the lake.

And it was a fake lake, created by damming up a river.

At the other end of the lake, I hiked through a picnic area, which was closed for construction. And then I passed by the marina, which was closed due to low water levels. So with nothing open, it’s an easy decision to continue onwards. It also made for a very quiet roadwalk, since there was no reason to drive the road. It was a very scenic roadwalk, blasted through granite cliffs.

I had planned on finding a free roadside camping spot, but the entire area is granite slabs, which would make setting up my tent impossible. So when I got to Ward Lake campground, I paid the small fee and set up my tent in one of the nice little campsites. Only three more days of the Hot Springs Trail until I’m finished!

Saturday September 13, 21.8mi/35.1km

Palisade Creek (x/8030ft) to Evolution Creek (x/9480ft) (CA)

The day started off Sunny but cold, I eagerly awaited the moment when the sun would hit the valley bottom.

The nice thing about early morning hiking is seeing all the wildlife. This deer didn’t seem to care at all that I was hiking within 20 feet.

And I saw some very fresh bear tracks, so woke me up a bit.

I followed the Middle Fork Kings River all morning, I think this was in Little Pete Meadow.

The river had this fog on it, I’m pretty sure the water is warmer than the air.

Finally the sun hit the valley bottom and it was gloriously warm.

It’s hard to tell from the photo but I hiked along this cool little slab waterfall.

Up higher, the trees disappeared and I no longer had shade, but it was cooler at 10,000 ft, so the perfect temperature balance.

I passed by Helen Lake, the last lake before Muir Pass. The first time I was up here in 2015, I had no idea this lake existed as it was under considerable snow.

The classic John Muir stone hut, on top of Muir Pass.

I was curious and had to investigate the inside of the hut, it looked pretty much the same as it did the previous couple times I’ve been here.

Though it did have a new item, in addition to a hiker register, it also had a confessional book.

I had a nice long lunch outside the hut in the Sun, and had a little yard sale and dried my gear from the overnight dampness. It was probably my warmest visit to Muir Pass, the previous times it was either cloudy or cold. I said goodbye to the hut and descended down to the Evolution Basin Lakes.

Wanda Lake was the biggest one, it even had some little rocky islands.

Sapphire Lake was smaller, but I appreciated the nice crossing of its outlet.

I forgot to get photos of Evolution Lake, and after that I dropped way down into the nice wooded Evolution Creek valley. In the last couple hours of the day I probably saw over 40 hikers, all hiking the opposite direction and aiming to get up the climb to Evolution Lake. That’s going to be a crowded lake! A few of them also mentioned how smoky it had been the last couple of days, but I guess I have lucky timing as there was no wildfire smoke today. I was fortunate to camp alone in a nice quiet spot under some trees near Evolution Creek.

It was a pretty easy day, cruising on the JMT/ PCT all day, tomorrow I’ll finish my little detour and link back up with the HST route.

Friday September 12, 24.2mi/39.0km

Copper Creek Trail (441.8/9040ft) to Palisade Creek (x/8030ft) (CA) +1.9 guidebook error

I woke up to amazingly clear skies and all the clouds and fog were gone.

I finished the big climb with another quick thousand feet, and then I was up in Granite Basin.

Hiking pleasant trail through alpine terrain in the morning sunlight, life is good.

I was almost up to Granite pass when I ran into a park ranger, who was coming from Granite Lake. We chatted for 10 minutes, he seemed genuinely curious about the Hot Springs Trail route I was hiking. I offered to show him my permit, he said he didn’t need to see it, he could look up my name in the database later. A few minutes after we parted ways, I ran into Mark, a backpacker from Oregon. We hiked up over Granite Pass together.

He was an interesting guy, talking about his Christmas tree farm and all the hikes he’s done, and how he’s out here on a 5-day loop hike for his 68th birthday. He was worried about staying in hiking shape, but I had trouble keeping up with him on the uphills. We parted ways at lunch, when I stopped to dry my sleeping bag and tent. It was still nice and sunny, but the usual afternoon clouds were starting to form.

After lunch I had a little bit of flat hiking and then it was all downhill, 4,000 ft. down to Simpson Meadow. I’m against people graffiti-ing signs but in this case it was actually helpful, since the distance wasn’t 5 miles, but closer to 7 miles. And no water!

The downhill started off nice and gentle, as the clouds really started to build up.

Pretty soon the sky was turning black.

The contrast between the Sunny half of the sky and the thunderstorm-y half was simply incredible.

There was thunder rumbling over my head, and after descending a couple of hours down many switchbacks, the thunder finally stopped. Once I got down to Simpson Meadow, it started to rain lightly.

From Simpson Meadow, the Hot Springs Trail turns left and follows the Middle Fork Kings River downstream. But, the big 50,000-acre Garnet fire is in that direction so I had come up with a detour. Instead, I will hike upstream along the MF Kings River, up up to the John Muir Trail, and follow that trail for 25 miles to where it reconnects with the Hot Springs Trail. So, I hiked 8 miles upstream along the river, the trail started off a little rough.

As I got higher up, the trail improved and it was quite dramatic to be hiking on a cliff above the river.

There were lots of little waterfalls and water slides.

I really enjoyed these parts of the trail, where it was blasted into the side of the rock.

Despite being very close to the MF Kings River, I could only access it a couple of times, so I made sure to fill up on water. The upper half of the trail was enjoyable, but also slow because it was rocky. It took longer than I expected, and I didn’t arrive to the JMT junction until almost 7pm. I quickly setup camp in the waning daylight, and after dinner, I realized that my 22 mile day was actually 24 miles, because of several guidebook errors. That explains why it felt quite a bit harder! Tomorrow should be easier, it’s all on the well-graded John Muir Trail (JMT).

Thursday September 11, 10.0mi/16.1km

Bubbs Creek Campsite (431.8/6240ft) to Copper Creek Trail (441.8/9040ft) (CA)

I left camp at 7am and for some reason all the other hikers were still there. Some of the groups had been awake for a while, on their third cup of coffee, and gave me a very energetic, Good morning! The trail down Bubbs Creek was a nice National park quality trail.

I think these deer were used to seeing people, they didn’t seem to care that I was passing by.

The clouds were swirling around the mountains and hiding some of the valleys.

After descending a quick thousand feet, I was on the valley floor next to the Middle Fork Kings River.

I could tell I was nearing a popular trailhead, the trail became so wide, it was like a road.

I arrived to the Road’s End Trailhead at 9am, and then waited about 30 minutes to hitch a ride down to the Cedar Grove village. The first car was a BMW and unsurprisingly didn’t pick me up, and the second car was a Subaru Solterra so I didn’t hear it coming, but it of course picked me up. Mary was a nice retired lady from Denver, visiting all the national parks. She dropped me off at the Cedar Grove general store 15 minutes later. The cafe had just closed for breakfast, so I bought some microwaveable items and had my own second breakfast.

When a place has signs like this, I know there are a lot of dirty hikers in the area, ha!

I sat at some tables in the little cafe, eventually they reopened for lunch and I ordered chicken, fries, and a salad. I sat there for 3 hours eating and charging my stuff, and then walked over to the shower building. The showers were closed until 3 pm, and I wasn’t going to wait around that long just to get a shower. I stopped by the visitor center to get an update on the nearby Garnet fire, which had grown to 50,000 acres.

There was an info board posted outside with fire information, the Rangers inside didn’t have any additional information but were nice and gave me a couple of masks, in case the air quality became bad.

I walked out to the main road to hitch back to the Roads End trailhead, and in 15 minutes a couple of off-duty park employees picked me up. They had some fun hikes planned for the end of the month during their slow season, when they can get more time off. I started the long hike uphill, gaining 4,000 feet elevation on the Copper Creek Trail.

There were dozens of long switchbacks, and after a couple hours I was high enough that I was almost in the clouds.

The view down back to the valley below was almost non-existent through the lowering clouds.

After 6 miles I decided to call it a day and set up camp at a flat spot near a switchback. I could’ve gone another mile or two and finished the big climb, but I didn’t want to camp at such a high elevation in case it’s cold tonight.

Wednesday September 10, 21.8mi/35.1km

Colby Lake (410.0/10620ft) to Bubbs Creek Campsite (431.8/6240ft) (CA)

When I was packing up my tent, I noticed a bunch of ice crystals on it. Frost!

I knew it was damp by the lake, but it didn’t feel quite cold enough for frost. Everything in the tent was damp from moisture too, I planned on drying everything at lunch. I had 11 miles of downhill hiking, so it was a pretty easy morning.

The sunrise was starting to creep over the mountaintops, I was looking forward to it warming up the valley.

Looking into the valley below me was a unique sight, I could look down at the clouds below me.

The trail gradually descended through the alpine, across big slabs of rock, and I slowly got closer to the cloud layer.

I love when they build the trail like this, just small rocks outlining the edges of the trail across big slabs.

Further down, I skirted around Big Wet Meadow, whose name was certainly accurate. The grasses were damp and my shoes became quite wet.

After a couple hours, the sun finally made it down into the bottom of the valley. The Sierras really are an amazing place.

I followed Roaring Creek downstream all morning, and stopped for lunch at a trail junction, which would begin the uphill climb. As I was sitting there eating a wrap, a horse packer rode by with his horse train.

A little while later, a woman on the trail maintenance crew hiked by. She was eyeing all my stuff that I laid out to dry in the Sun, so I commented ” just a small yard sale”, and she replied “no judgment”. Haha! After lunch I had a few hours of uphill hiking, to Avalanche Pass.

The trails have been very nice all day, so I made pretty good time. It was a little cold at the top of the 10,000-ft pass, as some puffy clouds had moved in and were partially obscuring the Sun. I passed a group of three guys backpacking a loop, we only exchanged a few sentences and kept moving to stay warm. The downhill portion of the trail was a little less maintained but still pretty nice.

The descent along Spinks Creek was simply impressive, I could see the whole Bubbs Creek Canyon and Kings River Canyon below me.

And the neat little Sphinx rock formation.

I followed Sphinx Creek all the way downhill, on some very impressively engineered trail.

The trail was blasted into the side of a steep rock face, or built onto it, with thousands of stairs, and a hundred switchbacks. As the afternoon cooled down the puffy clouds started colliding with the mountaintops.

Even though I had been here before, I was really quite surprised at how deep the Kings Canyon was.

I arrived at the Bubbs Creek campsite a little after 6pm, which was my planned camping spot. I couldn’t continue further, as camping isn’t legally allowed within 4 miles of the Roads End Trailhead, plus it had a bear box and I had just seen a bear.

Video link

When I got to the campsite, I was surprised to see a dozen tents already there, with probably 15 people around. They were all very friendly and a few invited me over to bring my dinner over to their campfire and chat for a while, so I decided to be social. I met a family from Minneapolis, a postman from Fresno, and two ladies on their honeymoon.

I stayed up way later than my usual bedtime, but finally told them all good night around 9:30 and passed out.

Tuesday September 9, 21.5mi/34.6km

Kern Canyon at Rattlesnake Creek (388.5/6590ft) to Colby Lake (410.0/10620ft) (CA)

I start off just before 7am, and it feels really cold. I’d guess about 40°F.

The Kern River Canyon is quite deep, so even 2 hours after sunrise, the sun still hasn’t made it down to the bottom of the canyon.

This part of the trail also coincides with the High Sierra Trail, and it’s very well maintained.

This has to be one of the most unique bridges I’ve ever seen, it uses a massive boulder as part of its structure.

I get to the Kern Hot Springs at 8:30, there’s no one around and I have it to myself.

The little tub is empty, and after I move the plug from the fill spout and put it in the drain, it fills up in about 5 minutes.

It feels so nice to sit in the hot springs in the cold morning, just relaxing and reading. There’s a bunch of graffiti on the wooden fence, I wonder if the vice president was here 33 years ago?

Once the sun crests over the canyon wall, I leave the hot spring and hike on wonderful trail for the rest of the morning.

There’s a campsite where the High Sierra Trail splits from my route, I decided to use that for my lunch spot. It’s right next to the Kern River, which at this point is nothing more than a little creek.

And then I start to climb up, up, up to Colby pass.

After reading Krista’s journal about their hike through here in July, I was preparing for it to be brushy, but it looked like a trail crew had come through recently and trimmed back all the brush. I enjoyed a ridiculously wide hiking corridor through the Manzanita.

Pretty quickly, I climbed a thousand feet, and just started to feel like alpine Sierra again.

Including the classics like the high Sierra meadows.

And hiking on giant slabs of granite.

I hadn’t seen people all day, even on the popular High Sierra Trail. But now, I was on a trail that almost no one hikes and I saw a German couple, two women on a loop hike, and a guided group of seven people. Crazy! The people in the guided group were sooo stoked about being out here, it was contagious, and I felt like I flew uphill for the next few miles. I always like seeing these signs because it means I’ve made it up to 10,000 ft elevation.

The final alpine meadow before the steep climb up to Colby Pass.

The climb up to the pass was pretty steep, it gained 1,800 ft in about 2 miles.

It was pretty chilly up at that elevation, but I was working pretty hard on the steep uphill so it evened out. I got to the top of the pass at 5:30, put on a bunch of layers and then took some time to enjoy all the views.

The requisite selfie atop the pass.

The descent down to Colby Lake was even steeper, there were dozens and dozens of tiny little switchbacks.

I descended 1400 ft and about a mile and a half. Yikes. The lake was looking pretty nice though, despite some wildfire smoke in the distance.

I was relieved to be down at the lake, since it was my plan camping spot and my knees were done for the day.

Looking back at the ridgeline I had just come over:

I had another pretty sweet camping spot in the pines, it’s hard to get a bad camping spot in the High Sierras.

It will probably get pretty cold up here at 10,600 ft elevation, but I think I’ll sleep pretty well after a long day and 6,000 ft of elevation gain.

Monday September 8, 22.7mi/36.5km

Pass above Cold Meadows (365.8/9740ft) to Kern Canyon at Rattlesnake Creek (388.5/6590ft) (CA)

The morning wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be, given that at almost 10,000 ft elevation.

I descended a little bit down to Cold Meadows, which definitely lived up to its name.

It was noticeably colder down here in this shallow valley, and the grass even had frost on it.

Getting across Cold Meadows was a little challenging, avoiding the swampy parts. Leaving Cold Meadows, however, proved to be much more difficult, as the trail disappeared.

I had three different maps downloaded for the area, and each showed the trail in a slightly different spot. I tried all three, and never found a trail. But it was an
open forest, so it was easy XC hiking. Once I got to the top of the ridge, I located the faint trail, and followed it easily to Stringer Saddle. The top of the pass was marked with a sign, and also this hilariously leaning tree.

From there the trail got better, and it was easy to follow down to Volcano Meadows.

I realized it was already noon, the morning hours had sped by, even though I only covered 9 miles. Trying to follow a faint trail is slow. I had lunch under a shady tree at the edge of the meadow, pondering why it would be called Volcano Meadows. A mile later, and I had my answer. There were lava fields everywhere!

After I had crossed Volcano Meadows, the trail quality improved considerably, I guess most hikers and trail crews don’t go beyond the meadow?

Most of the afternoon was a long downhill hike, back down to the Kern River. The same river I had left yesterday morning. This geologic feature caught me by surprise, I had no idea there was a natural bridge here.

A large creek was flowing right under the trail, pretty cool. And then I started to descend in earnest, dropping a couple thousand feet down into the Kern River Canyon.

It was a very nice trail, there were even hundreds of stone steps installed.

Back down at 6,500 ft elevation, the floor of the canyon was much warmer and I was back in the Manzanita climate.

Thankfully there was a big bridge over the Kern River, so I didn’t have to ford it.

And crossing the river meant I officially left Inyo National Forest and entered Sequoia National Park. And it’s still a decent sized river, even this far upstream.

Once across the river, I followed it upstream on a nice trail for the rest of the day, with some pretty sweet views of the canyon.

It was mostly a national park quality trail, there were even signs for the campsites.

This was one of the most impressive talus fields I’ve ever seen.

I had passed by another group that had already stopped to camp, I’m not used to seeing other backpackers, haha. I found a nice spot to camp at the junction with the Rattlesnake Trail, under some nice Ponderosa pines.

Sunday September 7, 17.8mi/28.7km

Upper Kern Flats (348.0/5070ft) to Pass above Cold Meadows (365.8/9740ft) (CA)

It was a surprisingly chilly morning as I made my way along the last mile of the Kern river.

From there, it was a short climb up to Soda Springs flat, where I was expecting to find a carbonated spring. Which I did, but I also found this large modern cabin in the middle of nowhere.

It was a strange sight, and I continued on to a little creek to take a break. By now it was getting pretty warm and I removed all my extra layers, Plus I had a sunny and exposed 1,000-ft climb up to Jordan Hot Springs a few miles away.

When I got to the hot springs, I was surprised to see another group already there. The closest access point is 5 miles away, I didn’t expect to see people here this early in the morning. Turns out they had camped out here overnight. Chris, Noelle, Emmanuel, and Kristy were on a 1-night backpacking trip, and for most of them it was their first time camping out. A super friendly group, and Chris even showed me where the hot springs were.

My timing was fortunate for them, they had lost their only water filter the night before, so they borrowed mine to fill their 4 platypus bladders for the hike out. It’s a 2000-ft climb to the exit, doing that without water would have been miserable. I spent a relaxing hour at the hot springs and then continued up the big climb, passing by some old dilapidated buildings along the way.

It was a nice well-graded trail, and before I knew it the 2,000-ft climb was behind me.

The climb ended in Casa Vieja Meadows, which seemed like a nice place to have lunch, given that it was nice and cool up here at 8,500 ft elevation.

The afternoon was mostly on easy trails, which just meandered through these high elevation pine forests.

It was finally beginning to feel like the Sierra landscape again.

The miles floated by, and pretty soon I was in Red Rock Meadows, these high Alpine meadows are always so neat.

This area seems to be full of dilapidated cabins, but they do make nice break spots with all the logs around to sit on.

After passing the cabin, the last hour of the day was a bit more difficult, given that the trail basically disappeared. There was even a sign pointing to the trail, but definitely no trail existed there.

So I hiked XC for a little, while keeping an eye on my map and the trees for any blazes. Eventually I ran into the trail as it was traversing across a long switchback, it was strange how it just appeared out of nowhere. I finished climbing to the top of a ridgeline, and decided to camp there rather than descending into Cold Meadows….which sounded uncomfortably cold for camping. It’s surprisingly light in my tent, camped in this sparse forest, under a nearly-full moon.