Wednesday March 17th, 2016
Oak Flat Campground
River Trail
Sespe Wilderness, SoCal
It was a chilly night in the hammock, but sleeping under the stars near the Sespe River, being sung to sleep by crickets and frogs was the most perfect way to start Spring Break. With morning coffee in my belly and a brisk dip in the river behind me with morning sun at my back, I'm excited to walk to our next home for a day-- Willet Hot Spring. Here's hoping the lemongrass oil keeps these bugs away.
Signing off for the first time trying on my trail name for size (it compliments the Napsack I don each evening).
- Something Fierce
Wednesday March 17th, 2016
Sespe River, Willet Campground
River Trail
Sespe Wilderness
Current mood: sheepish.
Sophia, Hillary and I turned a 2.7 mile stroll into double that just by being too excited about stream crossings and the intricacies of noodling in Oklahoma to notice we missed our hot springs cutoff by a mile or so. A group of Pomona college kids finishing their Spring Break tipped us off, so we walked back to find our friends happily sunbathing where we'd been an hour prior. We dipped our hot feet, rubbed every exposed inch of skin with mugwort and best intentions upon realizing how much poison oak was on trail, and then I spent an hour furiously trying to pump 64 ounces of water. For those who have water pumps, this is something that usually takes five minutes at a leisurely pace, quicker if you hustle. Turns out the MSR purifier need cleaned and that quietly judging myself and assigning issues of adequacy was much less effective than just scrubbing the ceramic with a sponge. Oh, rational science. You win again.
So, after overcoming technology I setup my hammock in almost the perfect spot. You can see and ear the river, hang the perfect height above the rocks, enjoy morning sun in the canyon and give great utility to a wooded part of the campground unfit for tents. One glitch-- poison oak thrives directly below me. I cross my fingers and hope for the best.
Thursday March 18th, 2016
Willet Campground
River Trail
Sespe Wilderness
We (Sophia, Hillary, Emilie, Lili, Minea and I) hiked up the side of the hill to Willet Hot Springs after dinner last night as dusk gave way to twilight. The warm sulfuric water made the zone along the spillover a riparian jungle, with broad leafy plant sand what looked like a relative of the Hawaiian Moon Flower only feet from the dry scrub found elsewhere on our hike. It's wild to walk through a sycamore grove, past desert sagebrush and then find myself here in 20 minutes time.
The six of us had the large plastic pool to ourselves. The hot spring was a source in the rock that people piped into this 10' diameter pool that was probably 4' tall. ~90 degrees Fahrenheit of milky blue water shone under the quarter moon. Minea shared Finnish Minttu Vodka with those interested, and I experienced my first time at a hot spring of sincere relaxation. There's safety for me in knowing the crowd--not something you can predict or count on in these public spaces. After about twenty minutes or so a guy named Tristan hiked over to join us. He was pretty much blissed out to find six lovely ladies under the moonlight at his self-reported first trip to a hot spring. Naturally, we sang to him and encouraged him to participate in a group ohm chant. The night progressed to the point of Hillary and I watching as the rest of the group made a slimy whirlpool, very similar technique as to what we used to pull at Aunt Sue and Uncle Jay's pool parties back in Ohio.
The ladies walked back past the white sage bush to our riverside home for much warmer and sounder sleep than the night prior. I identified that the moderate headache I was fighting was not dehydration--rather a pesky caffeine headache. By the end of this trip I will be back down to one milk cup of coffee per day-- probably for the best.
Today Sophia, Hillary and I are breaking off from the rest of the group to continue on to Sespe Hot Springs, an alleged 5.6 miles away. We'll be sad to separate from Emilie, Lili and Minea, but we'll always have these few nights of imagination and water to share.
Thursday March 18th
Campground of Unknown Origin
Coltrane Flat??
Well, for all the gruff I've given people hypnotized by technology in the backcountry, we may have found the benefit to wearing at least a pedometer for tracking mileage. To give some backstory, after an hour and a half of hiking today we stopped for lunch. Soon after, we crossed a creek (which we may have mistook for the left turn we'll make miles later), warping our sense of where we might be on Mr. Tom Harrison's map.
Clues to remember when looking back (and hopefully laughing later):
...Later that evening
@Sespe Hot Springs
(sitting on rock with hot water to my left)
- Pay attention to the number of stream crossings versus trail junctions on your map. We mistook the last big stream crossing after Hartman for our left turn, and it played mind games with our mileage estimates the rest of the day.
- Maybe the National Forest Service could use a trail crew to install some signage at the campgrounds? Or put the NFS roads on the map since those are the only trails referenced on the faded signs that do exist on this trail.
- You really do need to S.T.O.P. (sit, think, observe, plan) when you feel disoriented. We spout all these kitchy acronyms off to students when we teach survival skills, but it actually is important to push the reset button when you feel unsure of where you are. Sitting down and staring at the exact same map I'd been hiking with gave me the mental space to think to redraw my memory of our route, assigning landmarks, comparing them to the topographic features on the map and realizing that we were only to Coltrane Flat, when in fact we thought we were much further. Being hot, tired, hungry and eager made it hard for me to put that together.
- You're not lost if you know how to get home. For my parents who read this and might worry that I was foolishly 20 miles into the backcountry and lost, that is not true. We had everything we needed to turn around and be well fed on our way back to the car-- we just really, really wanted to find this hot creek I'm sitting next to right now.
THAT TIME I THOUGHT A SNAKE BIT ME...
Our water filter was clogged (again). We weren't sure where the hot springs were, and I wanted hero status. OK. That's dramatic. But since a little chill out and snack time at the campsite gave me some energy, I thought I'd scout an underwhelming ridge on the other side of the creek--just in case I was missing an obvious trail.
So I'd just relocated from lower to upper lookout spot irrationally fearful of a mountain lion attack, and now I was returning to the campsite. I was bushwhacking my way back to the creek, down the rock face and I felt a single pierce in my left calf--right in that area where you feel shin splints after running the mile in gym class. (Don't laugh, I've never been a runner.)
There were tall desert plants all around, so I assume I got punctured by some yucca-like plant. I felt something warm trickling down my leg only to find active bleeding, bright red, happening. The right height for a snake bite and unsure of if I heard a rustle as I thrashed toward the trail, I did what I learned in first aid training and circled the wound and wrote the time, ready to track the swelling or streaking as needed. Because a snake bite, venomous, 12.4 miles from the car is pretty easy to treat when you're 3 hours from sunset.
In happier news, Sophia boiled the ceramic water filter while I got a puncture in my leg and it was working by the time I returned to our campsite. I [wo]man-handled the p-cord Hillary had gotten stuck hanging her food, and we teamworked it up with Sophia finding rocks to hold down the tent placed on cliff-side property.
With full bellies and an hour or so of daylight we left for the 2-mile hike to what is in fact Sespe Hot Springs, the whole point of the trip. Huzzah!
Allegedly 190 degrees Fahrenheit at its source, Sespe Hot creek is in fact, f^@&! % HOT! The pools are more like sandy spots dug out at various points in a stream the width of a claw-foot bathtub, ranging in depth based on the sediment level. It's very clear, very noisy and gets progressively cooler as you get farther from the source. Maybe 1/2 a mile from the source it was still cozy like the baby bear's oatmeal.
We met a man named Jonathan camping at the springs and he showed us a few spots along the river to enjoy. The upper pool is probably a frisky 102 degrees F and the pool down the river was more like a reasonable 99 degrees F. Plenty hot for me to be excited enough to get out and cool off as I write this, trying to remember some constellations. Back home to the hammock soon.
Our mileage today: ~5.6 miles of new trail
~11 miles with all our out-and-backs figuring out where we were!
Friday March 19th, 2016
Sespe Hot Springs Camp
Johnston Ridge Trail
Mileage so far: 27 miles
Miles back to the car: 15.2
We woke up and moved camp from Coltrell Flat to the Sespe Hot Springs before the sun got too hot. We crossed Jonathan and got to say goodbye (turns out he's a good friend of Hillary's, which I missed somehow last night, figuring this stranger was just awesome and lovely without reason). We were in the water by 9:30am, enjoying some of the last cool, shady time in the canyon for the day.
I'd slept in a way where I woke with a headache, and it was getting worse. So after trying the usual, water, caffeine, food and some yoga, I gave myself a little neck and shoulder massage and resolved to taking a migraine pill and tried my best to rest in the hammock. Thank goodness we didn't have to hike anywhere today. After a few hours it still wasn't better, so some ibuprofen and lunch helped me kick it for good. That took a number of hours away from my day, but I made sure to save some time for first aid on my blistered pinky toe and filtering six liters of water for camp.
Notable moment: Hillary, Sophia and I unison peed before bed in a triangle, not hidden from each other a little. That's friendship.
Saturday March 20th, 2016
Leech Creek Campground
Sespe River Trail
I'm pooped.
After a luxurious 8:00pm soak in the hot spring hole adjacent to our camp spot at Sespe Hot Spring, we found ourselves crawling into bed at 8:45pm last night. This is mostly awesome, except that I'd emerged from a day of obligatory napping due to migraine at approximately 3pm. This meant that after being awake only ~6 hours I found myself entirely rested and ready to start my day at 12:47am. Woof.
I tried to yawn myself tired, strongly contemplating a midnight soak to warm and relax my tensing shoulders but instead settled for a restroom break and Spider Solitaire tournament for one four a few very cold hours. I know that screen time is the opposite of what anyone recommends for insomnia, but I was so wide awake I chose it for the convenience of maybe staying burrowed and warm.
So. Fast forward through today. 6:30am camp tear down. 7 am soak. 7:30am coffee, which smells DELICIOUS like toasty marshmallows, and we were on trail by 8:15am. We made great time and went about 14 miles by 3:45pm, including a ~30 minute rest at Willet campground for lunch. We kept true to our 2 mile per hour pace and impressed ourselves after only planning to go ~11 miles today. However, with Bear Creek Campground a literal zoo with way too many people occupying every flat spot available, we opted for ignoring the general public and my knee pain to find some peace closer to the car, with a hike all the way back and a hotel at the beach a viable alternative.
LEECH CREEK
My aching knees were happy to stop hiking and soak in the creek when we decided to stop about a mile and a half from the car. I waded out to a little spot in the creek where a waterfall cascaded over my lower half, old lady style.
When I got up after about ten minutes of cold water therapy I noticed many cupcake sprinkle-sized leeches attached to my legs, all squirmy and ticklish. I removed everything I saw and hoped for the best.
Then, after about ten minutes of sunbathing some strangers took our photos from the trail overlooking the creek. Tasteless on their part, we gave them our best side for our photo. *sigh* Reintroduction into society after being in the back country of is tough.
They sort of took the hint.
After a half hour of mostly blissful quiet time to ourselves a group of about ~25 college kids invaded our quiet site. Looks like we have to be friendly neighbors tonight after all. **double sigh**
Sunday March 21st, 2016
Leech Creek Campground
Sespe River Trail
IT FROSTED LAST NIGHT.
Sophia wanted to try out hammocking, and that darling sacrificed her comfort sleeping in the hammock the coldest night yet. I was still cold sleeping in the tent with Hillary, but I can't imagine what it would have felt like to sleep next to this wide, cold stream without a rain fly.
Funny story.
It might be an understatement to say that I had a "little trouble" with the idea of sharing our campsite with the college kids last night. It was only too appropriate to open up my ginger tea to read on the tag the recommendation to "Socialize with compassion, kindness and grace." Doh! The universe probably wanted me to remember how much fun i had being loud and intrusive at Stone Lab, 6th grade camp, etc. I suppose being cordial to the kids is easy, it's just always hard to reintegrate into society after being in the backcountry. Being swarmed by hormonal teenagers is not what one mentally prepares for when taking a break from an education-based job.
Less than ~2 miles of easy hiking later, we reunited with the car at the trailhead parking lot.
Total mileage (6 days of movement): 43 miles!
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