Monday June 16, 8.4mi/13.5km

Spring Valley Pass (934.5/7720ft) to Eureka (942.9/ft) (NV)

I slept really well in that camp spot despite having weird dreams about Jacinda Ardern (former Prime Minister) rescuing puppies from the sea. Excited for town, I had an early 6am start and was moving quickly towards food.

It was a pretty easy 8 miles of mostly downhill hiking, though I did hit a little traffic.

Being stuck in a flock of sheep definitely gave me New Zealand vibes. Eventually the shepherd came by and I talked to him and he is Basque! Apparently they have a history of settlement in this region from the 1800s. I visited Basque country a couple summers ago on the HRP (Pyrenees) route. After the congestion cleared I continued towards town, passing an old abandoned mine along the way.

I got into Eureka at 9am, and noticed it’s quite a bit bigger than Austin, and had more restored historic buildings.

The Opera House!

The saloon and general store.

And of course, just like Austin, they advertised their location on “the loneliest road in America”.

Since I was right next to the post office, I went in to get my resupply box of food (thanks Mom!). This was my favorite post office, because Daisy was helping to work the counter.

Next I went to eat breakfast, at the only place open in town, the Eureka Depot coffeehouse.

That cinnamon roll was made from butter with Vermont maple syrup in it. Amazing. It was still early so I hung out for an hour, charging my phone and catching up on the world. Sounds like the “No King’s Day” demonstrations were mostly a success. On my way out I met a Kiwi wearing an “All Blacks” t-shirt, he’s from Wellington. That was my third New Zealand connection today, the universe is weird. After breakfast I went across the street and explored more of the historic and touristy parts of town. Like this five-hole outhouse!

It didn’t explain how it was historically used, but I imagine five people would sit there and hold hands?! By now it was afternoon and I went over to the hotel to try and check in early. The hotel was short-staffed so the rooms weren’t ready yet but she said I could hang out in the breakfast room on one of the sofas. They had insanely cheap soda pop so I grabbed a couple, it’s so easy to get dehydrated out there.

The Best Western sure stay really had everything, a nice laundry room right on site, a fitness room, and even a full kitchen so I could make some meals and not have to spend lots of money eating out at restaurants.

So I made dinner in that little kitchen, though once I heard the Urban Cowboy restaurant had really excellent garlic naan, I had to go down and grab some. While I was waiting, a cold Coors beckoned.

I love that this is the default beer in this part of the world. Afterwards I went back to the hotel and flipped through the channels and watched half a season of Orange is the New Black, haha.

Sunday June 15, 26.4mi/42.5km

Faulkner Creek (908.1/7400ft) to Spring Valley Pass (934.5/7720ft) (NV)

I slept great next to the sound of the creek, and it was a nice cool morning. I had another mile of hiking in the forest before it disappeared.

I started noticing these little cacti, even though I’m still up high in the forest. The climate of this part of Nevada is intriguing.

Soon enough I was back down at a lower elevation in the sagebrush, beginning my crossing of Antelope Valley.

Just as the forest was ending, I had stopped at Faulkner Creek to fill up my water for the next 33 mi to town. Which was a good strategy, because although the guidebook lists the Hot Spring Ranch as having water, it was closed.

There didn’t seem to be anyone around, and I had 5 liters, plenty of water to hike the 30 miles to town. But it was odd. They actually had Wi-Fi, and forgot to put a password on it, so I was able to check their website and saw that it was no longer available for overnight stays or day use. It was only available for large groups to rent out the whole facility. Darn. I continued down the dirt road, crossing Antelope Valley. I saw no antelope, though I saw plenty of wild horses.

There was another private ranch, where the trail made a big detour around, adding a couple miles to the crossing of the valley.

By now it was getting a little hot, so I was looking forward to completing the valley crossing and getting back into the shade of the juniper trees. I stopped for lunch underneath the shade of a windmill, and I could hear it actually pumping water.

After eating most of the remaining food in my bag, I crossed the lowest part of the valley which was a playa.

There was even a little bit of easy XC hiking, there was such little vegetation on this playa that it was basically walking in a straight line, aiming for “Wood Cone peak” in the middle of the photo.

The end of the valley was in sight as I could see juniper trees nearby. And for some reason, antique junk cars were also nearby.

I took a nice long break in the shade of a juniper tree, enjoying the view back across the valley. It was fun to look at Summit Mountain, which I had hiked across yesterday afternoon.

Most of the dirt roads I hiked on today seemed very remote, I’m sure they’ve seen more hooves than tires. I had a small climb out of Antelope Valley up through a juniper forest and these cool little rock formations.

The rocks kinda reminded me of the ones in Joshua Tree, and they looked quite climbable! I spent the rest of the day hiking in a sparse juniper forest through Spring Valley, which was slowly leading me north towards town. Unsurprisingly, one of the spots the guidebook marked as a campsite was non-existent, so I continued a mile to the next spot which was a real campsite.

I hadn’t seen a single person all day today (or yesterday), so going into town tomorrow will probably feel a little hectic!

Saturday June 14, 26.7mi/43.0km

Toquima Ridge (881.4/6850ft) to Faulkner Creek (908.1/7400ft) (NV)

It was a great spot in the wash amongst the trees, and I noticed after hiking only a few minutes this morning the trees disappeared as I went downhill.

I finished off the last bit of XC hiking through some sparse sagebrush.

I arrived at Monitor well #3, which the guidebook says is a water source.

However, the windmill was missing most of its parts, and it appeared the well pump had been converted to run on electric. But there was no source of electricity nearby.

It appeared to be wired to run on a generator, which is a very odd setup indeed for a livestock water source. I climbed up on the metal tank and looked inside, only to find it empty of water but did contain two resident birds.

So I continued on across the Monitor valley, the next water source was 8 miles away on easy dirt roads. Thankfully it was a slightly cloudy morning which kept the temperatures nice and cool.

Apparently I had passed by the geographical center of Nevada. I looked for a sign but there was none. Now I kinda want to find the geographical center of all the states (except Hawaii, because it’s probably in the ocean). When I got to Wallace Canyon, I started hearing a lot of hoofbeats, and pretty soon I saw the culprits.

A few minutes later I started seeing riparian vegetation, some willows and cottonwood trees, and found the little side trail through the water source.

The guidebook calls it a springbox, but really it’s just a white PVC pipe. It was only 11am, but I had an early lunch and drank a ton of water since I knew the next water was up and over the Monitor mountain range. So I wouldn’t be seeing water again until tomorrow. The quiet dirt road climbed nice and gradually.

And as I got a little higher, the Aspen trees started to appear again.

After an hour of that nice road I turned onto a steeper 4wd track, which took me up to the top of the mountain range.

It was pretty amazing hiking through a sea of purple flowers for like a quarter mile.

Every time a breeze came, the whole field would shift and sway in vibrant colors. The 4wd track was decidedly inefficient, whoever built it was probably drunk as it went steeply uphill but then also sometimes back down half the gain. Ugh.

Finally after climbing 2,000 feet to gain only 1,200 feet overall, I cruised along the top of the ridgeline for a couple hours. There were lots of horses up here as well, though not all of them were alive.

Another strange sight was the last little bit of lingering snowpack.

After the nice traverse of the ridgeline on old 4wd drive roads, I had a couple miles of XC hiking. About half of the time I was able to follow horse trails to traverse the mountain.

I was pretty amazed to find three different colors of the paintbrush flowers!

Technically I walked on snow today, for all of 4 feet!

After hiking around Summit Mountain (a ridiculous name), I came to the little pass between it and Antelope Peak, so I knew I was almost done with the XC hiking.

Frustratingly, I couldn’t camp at this pass since it was far too windy and there were no trees, even though there had been trees all day at this elevation. So I descended into Faulkner Creek valley.

The guidebook suggested following patchy game trails, which was certainly a successful strategy, there was a very well-used braided web of game trails to link together and follow. I tried to stay away from the creek and it’s thicker vegetation, and pretty soon I was down at an old grassy two-track road. The guidebook full of lies also said there’s a campsite here but there was none to be found, just slope-y overgrown ground. So I followed the grassy two-track road another mile before I found a flat little spot under some pines right next to the road. It appears no one has driven this road in years so I’m not worried about a vehicle coming by. It was such a beautiful day of hiking but I definitely earned it with calories burned, and a few extra unplanned miles at the end of the day. Gonna sleep good tonight!

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.

Thursday June 12, 10.1mi/16.3km

Austin (859.0/6555ft) to Birch Creek (860.1/6760ft) (NV) + 9.0mi Austin spur

Not a whole lot of interesting things happened today, I finished my usual cleaning chores and then left the hotel at 11am, heading to the little veterans park to sit on a shaded bench while updating my journal. Having finished that I walked a block and returned to the International Cafe, today just ordering french fries. I met a fascinating older couple from Colorado who were wrapping up a huge loop roadtrip to the Olympic peninsula in Washington. After my meal I walked up to the library, and on the way I noticed this old bar. I’m not sure if they ever understood the coincidence of naming their bar Golden Club, while advertising Coors.

The town library had recently moved into an old renovated general store. It was a really neat building.

The inside was small but very nice, and they even had one of those cool rolling ladders to get to the books on the top shelves.

After updating my maps and doing a few other computer chores, I ended up chatting with the librarian about my hiking route. I also learned about Mormon crickets and their part in the history of Mormons and Salt Lake city. The Hot Springs Trail is a lonely trail, and I miss having conversations with other people, especially intelligent conversations with interesting people like her. But alas, it was 4pm and time to leave, so I hiked out and reversed my route from yesterday.

Back up the hill, and then right back down to Birch Creek again.

After 3 hours, I was back on the official Hot Springs Trail, and decided to hike a little further and cover some new terrain. After a mile I found a cozy little spot next to the creek, and set up camp in my new tent.

Wednesday June 11, 7.6mi/12.2km

N Fork Birch Creek (859.0/7300ft) to Austin (859.0/6555ft) (NV) +7.6mi Austin spur

Usually on town days, I’m up earlier and excited to get to a restaurant and eat my face off. But the tiny Town of Austin doesn’t have anything open before 11am, so I lazily left my campsite just before 8am. I had another hour of gradual uphill hiking and then 4 miles of downhill into the town.

After I got over the highest point I could see down into the little town. The view reminded me strongly of descending into some of the little towns on the HRP/Pyrenees hike.

I got into town a little after 10am, and since no food establishments were open, I went to the post office and took care of that task.

I picked up my box of food, and my new tent (my old one finally died after 6,000 miles). As I walked through the town, I noticed most of the storefronts were closed. This little cafe still had their temporary closure sign from Covid-19.

And this convenience store appeared long out of business.

It was a cute little Main Street though, with the classic Western storefronts and the feel of an old mining town.

And they heavily advertised Highway 50, “the loneliest Road in America”.

Finally, it was 11am, and I walked into the International Cafe, which seemed to be neither of those words. They didn’t serve any International food or traditional cafe/breakfast food, only burgers and chicken wings.

The food was actually pretty decent and the server was friendly, and I especially appreciated the cheap cold drinks!

I spent an hour there eating and relaxing and then headed over to the hotel to try to check in early. It worked!

The room was a strange configuration with a secondary little bedroom off the main room. But it was very modern and seemed to be recently renovated. Lots of USB plugs, a waterfall shower, and a heat pump. I exploded the contents of my backpack all over the room and washed some clothes in the sink, and then unpacked my boxes from the post office. Delicious homemade peanut butter cookies in the food box!

I spent a couple hours planning the next parts of this trail, eating some snacks I got from the convenience store nearby, and watching old 2000s movies. High School Musical was on two different channels, fascinating. By 5pm I was pretty hungry so I went over to the other restaurant in town, Grandma’s.

I have been craving a salad all week so that was the first thing I ordered.

They had a pretty limited menu, and on some advice from the two hikers ahead of me (Eric and Krista) I ordered a pizza and it was legit really good.

It was called the ridiculous pizza and it had basically every topping on it. Except pineapple, because I’m not a heathen. As I was leaving dinner I ran into two other outdoorsy looking guys, so I chatted with them and learned that they are biking across the US on Highway 50. Pablo is from Madrid, and Gary is from DC, and they just met each other yesterday after a month on their journey.

It was really cool to meet other adventurers, we swapped a few stories and then went down the street to the convenience store where we each got some snacks or drinks. And of course I got ice cream! They finish about a week, at the Golden Gate bridge. Pretty cool! I went back to my motel room and started packing up stuff for tomorrow, while watching some more old movies.

Tuesday June 10, 19.7mi/31.7km

Kingston Canyon Trailhead (840.7/7440ft) to N Fork Birch Creek (859.0/7300ft) (NV) +1.4mi Austin spur

I didn’t get to sleep until almost 10pm so I slept in and had a late start out of camp. It was chilly in the shade but the day was warming up rapidly.

In less than a mile I passed by this old guard station, which looked like a relic of the 1930s CCC era.

It was a quiet morning of hiking up dirt roads that nobody seems to drive, the only noise was from this very vocal bird.

I had a very gradual uphill hike to a low pass, with heaps of scenery to distract me.

I arrived to a junction point where the guidebook has an option to take an 8 Mile XC route across the top of a ridgeline, but it meant an extra 3,000 ft of climbing and I didn’t want to be stuck up there in the afternoon thunderstorms. So instead I just had a nice relaxing break by the little creek at the junction.

Eventually I left from my little spot and continued up on the rough dirt road, and I only saw one car the whole day. I didn’t hear them coming since they have a modern (electric) car, and they stopped to chat and offered me a cold drink!

Stephen & Zoe were driving back home to Silver City, New Mexico from a “quick trip” they had made up to Fairbanks. Shortly after we parted ways neared the top of the pass and started seeing dozens of these massive insects.

They seem to be some sort of nuisance cricket, they don’t seem to fly or bite. They can only hop. But there were hundreds of them, all scattering out of my path as I walked down the road.

But it was a very scenic descent into the next little valley for Big Creek.

Then I climbed up over another pass and down into the Birch Creek valley. At the top of the pass, I took a break and a large group of a dozen ATV riders came through. They were pretty spread out and each one stopped right next to where I was sitting, while running their loud and smelly exhaust, which was a pretty dick move. The last two riders were better and just continued past, but they also had quiet electric ATVs so they’re probably just more considerate people. I didn’t see anybody else the rest of the day and the descent into the valley was in a cool little Aspen forest.

Since I got lower in elevation, the trees disappeared as usual.

Lots of nice green scenery, and the thunderclouds didn’t seem to be as aggressive today.

I had to get creative to keep my feet dry while getting across the little creek, it was the only tricky crossing all day.

A bunch of tributary streams converged into one main stem, Birch Creek. It started to feel canyon-esque with all of the rocks nearby, I really liked this area.

This spot marked the end of this section in the guidebook, from here I will hike a 9-mile spur route out to the town of Austin to resupply. I ended up hiking over a mile up the spur route before I found a suitable camping spot, so it will be a pretty short day tomorrow morning.

Monday June 9, 27.7mi/44.6km

Marysville Canyon Trail Jct (813.0/8890ft) to Kingston Canyon Trailhead (840.7/7440ft) (NV)

Another beautiful day on the Toiyabe Crest Trail! I left camp at 6:30 and had a few miles through steeply rolling hills on old 4wd roads.

It’s funny that this old road would be steeper than a trail, usually roads switchback up hillsides too. Not this one… Straight up. Paula Abdul style.

I was at a slightly lower elevation now just below 9,000 ft, and I started seeing all these huge leafy plants. I know they will eventually sprout yellow flowers, but none of these had them.

The Toiyabe Crest Trail is generally a well-maintained and well signed trail, for pretty much all 50 miles of its length. In this case it was oversigned, as there was no creek here, and the San Juan basin is one ridgeline over!

A beautiful morning of hiking.

I hiked by a bunch of these signs yesterday but they were all faded, so I was finally able to get a nice photo of a nice new sign for this National Recreation Trail.

The trail would weave around the mountainsides and occasionally dip into small gullies, some of which had creeks and therefore lots of lush vegetation. I loved hiking through the little Aspen forests.

One of the little creeks was still covered in a lingering snowfield, which was easy to walk across, but it meant I had wet feet now.

My final task of the day was to climb up this valley, to the 10,000 ft pass in the distance.

More aspen forests! Actually it’s more like an Aspen grove.

Kingston canyon is the northern end of the Toiyabe Crest Trail.

I stopped by the creek to refill my water, have a snack and wait out the remaining thunder. After a mile of easy switchbacked hiking I was at the top of the pass, the view looking back down what I had just climbed:

The trail stayed up high on a ridgeline and wrapped around a small summit. I should have expected the Eastern sides to still have cornices.

No way I was going to try to traverse on that snow, and it was easy to go up and then around.

I was hiking in the sunshine, but the storms in the distance provided a very interesting lighting contrast.

I love a good ridgeline walk, it was just so good. If yesterday was my favorite day, today was my second favorite. These two rock pillars seemed like sentinels guarding the final part of the trail! Like the ones from the movie, Neverending Story.

Epic views.

Way up here at 10,500 ft, I saw a lonely little flower clinging to life next to a rock.

It was nearing the end of the day, so I was happy to be approaching my planned camping spot at a lower saddle at 9100 ft. Again though, even though there had been trees and bushes all day, there weren’t any here in the saddle. And it was quite windy, making it a pretty unusable camp spot. So I continued three more miles, all the way down to the valley, at Kingston canyon Trailhead.

I did get a special treat watching the full moon rise over Groves Lake.

A few minutes later I was at the trailhead, and camped literally directly at the trailhead, since I promised my feet I would go no further (picture taken the next morning).

There was a nice picnic table here, so I enjoyed dinner sitting at a table and it felt so luxurious.

By now it was 9pm and getting quite cold in this deep damp valley, so I quickly setup my tent and crawled into my sleeping bag with a bunch of warm clothes.

Sunday June 8, 27.4mi/44.1kmSaddle near Pete’s Cabin (785.6/8590ft) to Marysville Canyon Trail Jct (813.0/8890ft) (NV)It was surprisingly chilly overnight, and I started hiking in my fleece and warm hat.In a couple minutes I was at the pass, where there was a great view of Arc Dome, where I would be later today.The trail is also noticeably better on the other side of the pass. Still brushy, but very easy to follow.I just sent it a couple miles down to the Reese River, where the trail got a little confusing amongst all the vegetation and felled trees.Once I found the correct spot to cross, it was easy, and I noticed that beavers had been very busy in this area, hence all the fallen trees.The trail remained along the river for a little while and was pretty green and lush.Pretty soon I turned off the Reese River Trail and started climbing along the Big Sawmill Creek Trail.The first few minutes of the trail were flooded by Beaver activity, but after that the trail generally stayed high and dry away from the tangle of vegetation near the creek. I noticed these neat alpine flowers as I started to climb higher.Unfortunately I also noticed this little guy trying to hitch a ride on my sock.He died a quick and hopefully painful death between two sharp rocks. All that lush vegetation from earlier must be where I picked up that tick. I continued to climb up the Sawmill Creek drainage, where more wildflowers appeared.It was like nature’s own bouquet! And then some corn lilies appeared, which I hadn’t seen yet on this trail.Near the top of the climb, the stream dwindled to a tiny creek, the lush vegetation disappeared, and some small snowbanks remained from the winter.Looking back down on what I had just hiked up:Near the top of the climb, I joined the official Toiyabe Crest Trail, TCT.I continued another 10 minutes to the top of the climb, where there was a junction to the Arc Dome Summit trail.That pointy peak in the distance is actually 3 miles away, so I chose not to do the 6 mile roundtrip side-quest. But I had a nice break at the trail junction, it was even kinda warm, despite the fact that I was at 11,000 ft elevation.I had a nice long lunch and thoroughly checked myself for ticks, and cleaned out my socks and shoes from all the river crossings. After lunch it was a blissful afternoon of walking along high plateaus and ridgelines.Early on, I came to a snow cornice, which was pretty small and easy to hike through.I was actually carrying microspikes, but they would have been useless here as the snow was so soft and slushy there’s nothing to grip on. Looking back to the little snow cornice I had come down:Some clouds moved in and it became a little windy as I traversed the plateau.On the north- and east-facing slopes, there was a surprising amount of snow remaining.It was extremely enjoyable hiking on a nice trail with amazing views all afternoon.Once I dropped off the initial plateau, I was following ridgelines, usually around an elevation of 10,500ft.My Luna bar was absolutely correct today.There are barely any trees up here at this elevation and the ones that exist seem to be very stunted and gnarled.Some thunder-y looking clouds moved in, and I was glad I was hiking around the peaks and not over them.Just weaving my way through more little peaks.It kind of felt like being back on the PCT in Northern California again, or the Richmond range in New Zealand. Lots of nice trail with never-ending views!When I got to my planned camping spot, I was surprised to see there weren’t any trees, despite it being at a lower elevation of 9,500 ft. It was also insanely windy at Mohawk Canyon saddle, so there was no way I could camp there and so I had to continue hiking. 5 miles later I found myself at a saddle near Marysville Creek Canyon, which was at a slightly lower elevation and had trees. Glorious trees! My late 7:30 arrival at camp meant that after I did all my evening chores, the sun had already set, leaving just this deep red sky remaining.This was by far my favorite day of the entire Hot Springs Trail so far! There’s another 30 miles or so on the Toiyabe Crest, so I look forward to what tomorrow will bring.

Saturday June 7, 24.2mi/39.0km

Big Smoky Valley (761.4/5490ft) to Saddle near Pete’s Cabin (785.6/8590ft) (NV)

I left camp at 6:30 and was excited that I only had 6 more miles until water!

There hasn’t been any water since I left Tonopah, so I’ve been rationing my water for the 44 mile waterless stretch. I actually came across some water a mile earlier than expected, so that was a nice surprise.

I walked by some ranches which had a few friendly horses, who were not at all shy about wanting their faces itched.

When I got to the designated spot to get water, the green gate was padlocked shut with a few no trespassing signs. But there was a nearby old stone hut, and I could get to the creek from behind that building.

I was no longer in the big valley, and was now heading up a narrowing canyon.

It was exciting to enter a national forest again, usually that means more trails and less roadwalking.

I passed by some old buildings, most of which were abandoned but one of them was inhabited and the guy came down and asked what I was hiking. He was really curious for details and invited me up for cold lemonade and fruit.

After a quick visit, I continued a couple of miles on a hot dirt road.

Fortunately that only lasted 2 miles and then I was in the Peavine campground, which was nice and shady and peaceful with the flowing creek.

It was also home to plenty of wildlife!

I decided to stop and have an early lunch, it was such a nice spot.

I was there for over an hour and then I noticed that usual afternoon clouds had arrived, so I decided it was a good time to continue heading up the road.

The road crisscrossed Peavine Creek a dozen times, and many of those crossings I walked right through it and got wet feet. As I slowly ascended, I noticed the junipers and pinion pines had returned.

And then the dirt road ended and I was entering the Arc Dome wilderness, on an actual hiking trail!

The guidebook describes this as a nice trail, which is pure fiction. It was easy enough to follow but was a little brushy.

When the trail ventured near the creek or crossed it, the fast-growing willows really crowded the trail and made it hard to see. At one point I stumbled upon an entire cow skeleton, which was shocking.

And a minute later I came across its hide as well. Kinda creepy.

As I continued to ascend eventually the little creek dried up, and the trail was now passing through sagebrush. It was easier to follow the trail but very scratchy.

I had planned to camp at the site of Pete’s cabin, but when I got there it was overgrown and not really suitable for camping. So I continued a few more minutes towards the pass, which I was sure would have a flat spot for my tent. Fortunately, I found a little spot amongst these short little trees just before the pass, even better!

Hopefully it doesn’t get too cold tonight, I’m camped up at 8,600 ft elevation.