March Hot Springs – Up – WHUFU Stories

Saturday (Apr 2)

Slept with the van door cracked open, and slept pretty well I think. But the heat and constant activity always awakens me early here – I’ll see the same person walking to and from the bathroom 2, 3, 4 times in a morning, often chatting with their friend as they pass two feet from my open door.

Also, I’m still a little bummed about the W’s losing last night.

Day FIVE! Doing the trip in the opposite direction requires a little bit of creativity in the planning department. I rolled into the Lone Pine Bistro in the morning last time, but this time I rolled in mid-afternoon, to eat a sando and get a sando to go but mostly because it was the only chance I’ll have to soak up my daily wifi before I get to my campground.

I am SO not engaged in March Madness that I had completely forgotten the semis are happening right now … meh.

I think Independence Creek is a perfect place to enjoy the Owens Valley. I am really digging the fact that it’s getting a little nippy now that the sun is going down. Good to be back from the hell that is Death Valley!

The neighbors across the creek are having a big Saturday night family fun party – loud talking and music. Rather than get cranky about it I decided to have a bit of a party myself! The notion was that since I wasn’t going to be able to sit quietly and listen to the creek, I’d rather hear my music than their crappy country music, so … crank up the bluetooth speaker and party on! I’m normally quite self-conscious about playing loud music in nature, but since they already were doing that with their boring stuff, might as well! It was quite fun.

Sunday

Finally, really did sleep well, maybe for the first time this trip. When the the sun started streaming in past my makeshift curtain, I roused myself enough to back down the hill 40 yards to a shady spot, where I happily spent the next three hours.

I tried a new coffee place in Bishop – Black Sheep Coffee. Just my kind of place. It was like a Friends episode for rock climbers. Those cheerful, healthy but annoyingly clannish young people have definitely taken over Bishop. The kids across the aisle mentioned the “green church” on the phone to their friends multiple times, which was a preview of the rest of my day and night. The green church is the landmark for the Benton Crossing Road turnoff to the hot springs, so what’s there the whole effing tribe of these kids is going tonight. aargh!

Stopped at Manor Mart for their quality fresh deli items and their hot check-out women. Yep! they are maintaining consistency in both departments, and good for them!

It’s been a while since I’ve done the south to north 395 run slowly, I am seeing it with fresh eyes and really enjoying it. Here on the sixth night of my trip I am finally NOT staying in the place stayed last time. The corresponding night of the last trip I stayed in the parking lot of the Canyon Ski Lodge, and I know I can do a lot better this time.

Crrraazy busy around here tonight. The tub down the hill had a van parked there which stayed all night. In the 20 or so minutes I’ve been here, three cars have gone down there, turned around and left, two more yuppie SUVs went and stayed, so there’s probably eight or ten folks down there, for a tub that fits three people willing to get close.

I am letting go of the hot soak concept, and instead embracing the free camping concept – feeling blessed to have a wonderful, level spot, spectacular views of the mountains east and west, and the prospect of soaking tomorrow morning, then Looney Bean coffee a mere 20 minutes away.

I actually did have an opportunity to soak, but come to find out that the water NOT hot tonight! Dunno what’s up with that?! but since I’d already let go of caring about it it was no big deal :) I just walked back to my happy van and watched sunset until the plummeting temperature drove me inside.

Three or four more cars when by after dark, but by then I had rotated the van away from the road for privacy and sunrise avoidance, so I lost track.

Monday

I got pretty cold last night. My propane is running low. So following my “fear of famine” psychology, that meant I stopped using it, so I’ll have a little reserve when Armageddon comes. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that’s how I roll. I turned my heat off for most of the night. At sunrise I bestirred myself to check the indoor/outdoor thermometer: 42°/27°. Wow! By 10:30 am it’s was 60° inside and outside. Wow.

As least six cars went by this morning. And to be clear, I do not mean six cars zoomed by on Whitmore Tubs Road 150 yards up the hill, I mean six cars took the turnoff to the Rock Tub, drove the bumpy, dusty road pst my van and either decided to have a go of it or turned around and drove back.

When I got going I decided to do a drive-by on Hot Creek for old times sake. It’s only about three miles of not too sucky gravel road, and will actually cut off a little distance on the way to Mammoth. I remember the days when it was OK to swim there, and I remember the crushing disappointment of the first time I came and it was NOT OK! Bummer, that was a sweet place to soak. It’s still a really cool place to walk around. The cute little valley of the Hot Creek reminds me of that old movie Jason and the Argonauts. Really unlikely volcanic rocks shooting out of the steep walls, and steam and bright blue bubbling water tumbling out of the rocks. I expect the Hydra or the Myrmidons to appear around the corner at any moment.

That was fun, then on to Mammoth. I didn’t really plan it to be so, but it was Errand Day as it turns out. Get my coffee and enjoy my Looney Bean experience, then get my propane refilled (yay!), then go to Safeway (called Von’s because Mammoth is in Greater LA, but it’s really Safeway), then hunt down the only car audio place in Mammoth to get my audio looked at.

The sad fact is that my podcast setup is crapping out over the last few days. I have an iPhone 4S plug (the older big flat one) hooked into my car audio through which I listen to podcasts on my old iPhone. I basically do this all the driving day every day of these trips, so having it fail is just not acceptable. It started disconnecting randomly three days ago, and today it got really bad. It crapped out completely this morning, a few hundred yards into my gravel road adventure to Hot Creek. The nice dude took apart my Kenwood console, everything looked all right, guessed that it was the cable, but did not have any in stock. So it was a FAIL in terms of fixing it, but he did sell me a mini cable so I can listen the old fashioned way for the rest of the trip.

So … back to vacation! Left Mammoth, drove north. Drove into where Glass Creek Campground is far enough to confirm that it would be campable if the roads are passable. That is, there is no gate to stop one.

Then I drove the June Lake Loop because it is so pretty. Also to confirm that almost all of its campgrounds are gated and closed. Gull Lake is not, and that Aerie overflow lot past Silver Lake is not. Seems like they might bust me for staying in Gull, but I’ll bet no one would care if I overnighted at Aerie, so there’s my winter camping option!

Drive through Lee Vining to Mono Lake County Park on the north side of the lake, one of my favorite stops. Walked down to the tufa, walked back. No big deal, but I felt better for it.

Finish up the day, drive through Bridgeport, then the long right-angled trip through the flat valley to Buckeye Road and my favorite little spot in the trees above the hot springs.

An off road biker puttered up to the next point and hung around while I was fiddling with my new hammock. Then he puttered away, leaving me happily alone. I did not get the official hammock hanging straps when I bought the hammock, so I am trying to repurpose the complicated German engineering cargo straps that came with my van into hammock straps, but didn’t have much success. After a while I punted and did something I know I can do, namely sit in my chair and drink a beer and type on this laptop.

A little before dark I decided to make a run (well, really a fast walk) to the hot spring. I packed my necessaries and headed down the dusty road, around the bend and across the creek, then cut through the free camping area after the bend. I stuck as close to the creek as I could, wondering if there is a creekside trail. There is! I felt very pleased with myself for finding it and taking it. It was pretty rustic, but got it me there.

The last 30 yards were the toughest, because the ground was extremely wet and boggy and it was hard not to get pretty muddy. Four kids in the water, one left so I got the second best hot waterfall. A couple never moved from the first best waterfall. I didn’t stay as long as I would really have liked, because it was getting pretty dark, and this is a no moon night – so dark is DARK.

One kid left when I did. He headed down the creekside trail, but I decided I wanted to walk the road. I had quite a time bushwhacking my way up the slippery slope by headlamp. It was the most demanding thing my pampered old body done in a while, and I was very pleased with my bad self for doing it! Up in the open, I was able to walk all the way back without a flashlight, my favorite thing!

Tuesday

Got pretty cold again – 30-ish – but I’ve got a full tank of propane, so it’s all good. Beautiful, perfect morning.

The exit choices were:

retrace my path to Bridgeport, or
continue forward on Buckeye Road, where you have a much longer stretch of crappy dirt road, but you cut out about 8 miles of 395 and end up closer to home.

I hate backtracking, so forward I went. It went just fine until maybe three miles from 395, but then … a fucking road grader.

There was a single sign saying “Road Construction” about two miles in. Then four turns later there was suddenly a 2 foot tall ridge of gravel right in the of the road, continuing forever! At first I instinctively went to the right of it (the outside/downhill side), but quickly realized that “lane” becomes too narrow. The only option is the left “lane”. Ok, fine.

Backed up 30 yards to the start of the ridge and took the left. Followed this track for a mile or so: 6-8 turns on this narrow road. The turned-up dirt seemed extremely fresh. Then I went around another bend and boom! there’s a fucking road grader right in front of me, going about 2 mph, scraping out a nice clean corner on the hill side of the road and leaving the resulting dirt in the middle of the road, no doubt to take a second pass later and push it to the edge or over the edge.

For a while I had foolish hopes that he would do something nice like move over and let me get on my way, but it became clear he did not give a fuck what my problems were, he was going to plow his track. This went on for 15 minutes, 5-6 turns, until a particular inside turn had the two necessary features:

wide enough to pass, and
ridge of dirt was small enough that I could hop over it.

So off I went, able to go speed up all the way to 15 mph! Gave that dude a middle finger salute and went on my way, I didn’t lose very much time really, but I lost a lot of composure and energy. Instead of being all happy and ready for action like you should be 40 minutes into your day, I was wrung out. It was actually pretty stressful.

The rest of the day went according to plan, there was just more of it than I expected. First part was easy, enjoy the pretty drive to Topaz Lake, where I had the beloved steak & eggs special at the casino. Got my favorite view table, the steak was thick and a perfect medium rare. Excellent.

I am heading towards home, but I did not go home. I cut left (west) before Minden, across the Carson River and the wide flat Carson Valley to Kingsbury Grade. I want to camp at Sierra Hot Springs tonight, and decided to take the maximally scenic route, taking the Grade to South Lake, then up the east side of the laks to Kings Beach and 267 to Truckee then 89 to Sierraville.

Kingsbury Grade was longer, higher and curvier than I remembered. The lakeside drive was also long, and I managed to be driving the next leg, Kings Beach and the road to Northstar/Truckee, at Tahoe rush hour. Finally checked in at the Hot Springs at 5:30, anxious to get started on relaxing.

The ground up here at 5200′ is very damp and boggy, the way is usually is in high country in the spring after the snow melt but before the heat dries it out. Also, it is almost windless, 60°, just perfect …. except that the newly hatched mosquitoes are rising up out of the bogginess, ravenous and swarming. I have covered every piece of my body except my hands and my face, so I am soldiering on. I can still hear them very well by my ears outside my beanie.

Wednesday

Checked in at 5:30 last night, so I have the run of the place till 5:30 tonight. I breakfasted at The Fork and Horn, formerly the (I think) Sierraville Cafe, and before that the Roundup Cafe. They cleaned the place up and went kind of gourmet. The food is very good now. Back to a lovely day of hanging out on the porch all afternoon. Left a little before 5 and drove 300 yards to the hot springs parking for a short soak in the very hot pool.

Left, and drove back to town for dinner – chile verde at Dos Hermanos – yum! Then drive home to Reno. A very nice trip!