Saline Valley Warm Springs

Each year we camp out at least one night at Saline Valley Warm Springs. This year Dannielle and Britt (the animal attractors) came with us.

The north side of South Pass descending into Saline Valley always holds snow the longest. This year we have had a lot of snow, so there was still a lot of snow left on the road. This picture is not a good representation, but Andrew had the truck in four-wheel drive and had to give it gas to go down hill.

The entrance to the Warm Spring area is marked by the Bat Pole.

It's a beautiful place to camp.

Our favorite soaking pool (pictured below) is beside the palm trees behind Andrew.

We had a visitor at camp that night, a cute, little kangaroo rat. The thing that amazes me about them, is that they can go their entire life without taking a drink of water. They are nocturnal animals, and all they get all the water they need through their food. That is desert adaptation for you.

When we all retired to our sleeping quarters that night we listened to the eerie sounds of braying donkeys. That is a startling sound when you are not expecting it. The next morning the burros were still hanging around. There were eleven of them. That is the largest group we have ever seen in the park.

It's Eeyore!

A braying burro.

The burro on the left seems to be the omega of the group. No body likes him. :( The other burros were kicking and biting him.

Poor burro

This one has a few wounds too, including a halfway bitten off ear.

Tres Amigos

We went down to the lower spring to check things out as we were leaving the next day. We always camp and soak at the upper spring, it seems to be a bit more private.

How would you like to take a shower here?

Or a bath here?

~

The plan was to make a loop out of the Warm Springs and the Racetrack, so we headed over to the Racetrack that afternoon. Someone left an old bull dozer in the middle of the Saline Valley Road the week before. We heard it took several people four days to dig around the piece of equipment. The path was clear when we passed through the day before, but over night a couple of huge rocks had fallen off the hillside. Andrew and Britt hooked up a chain and tow strap to the rocks and drug them out of the way.

Now the path is clear again.

The Lippencott Road

Even though it hadn't rained in a week and a half, the Racetack was full of water. We were amazed. So, no walking out to see the moving rocks this time.

On our way back to Furnace Creek, we noticed the park service had put up a new Teakettle Junction sign.

Snowshoeing in the Sierras

A couple of weeks ago, Andrew and I decided to go do some snowshoeing...for the first time ever! We have talked about buying some for the last couple of years, but decided to borrow some for a trial run then make a final decision. They were much easier to use than I expected because everyone has told us how awkward and difficult it is. We drove north to Lee Vining and picked up the snowshoes then went a little further north to snowshoe. There are so many options on places to go so we decided to snowshoe out to a couple of different hot springs.

The view looking south at Mono Lake.

As we were driving down the road, we spotted two bald eagles perched in a tree. Very cool!

The first hot spring we visited is just outside of Bridgeport, CA. It is actually so close to town and a favorite spot for locals, we were able to drive there even though the road had not been plowed and was pretty snowed over.

There are several small pools and seeps, but the one below is the most popular. I'm sure you can tell why...it's beautiful!

After a quick visit here (no soak, only a few photos) we drove west, across town and up into the base of the Eastern Sierra's to camp. It was eighteen degrees when we went to bed that night. We slept in the bed of the truck in our zero degree bags, so we were toasty warm.

The next morning we snowshoed three miles on a Forest Service road out to Buckeye Hot Springs.

Winter hiking at its finest!

We found snowshoeing to be tons of fun and a great workout just as we had heard. We will definitely be investing in some of these in the future. I'm sure the older style, tennis racket snowshoes are much more difficult to use than the style we have on.

There was a solid base of at least three feet of snow on the ground. Thank goodness there were old snowmobile tracks for Boss to walk on because he was sinking up to his belly on his own.

After three miles....

we finally arrived at Buckeye Creek.

And right beside the creek, literally a wall of rocks away, were the most amazing hot springs!

Even though we didn't plan on this and we didn't have our bathing suits, we couldn't resist this incredibly, magical gift. We soon had wet undies! :)

It snowed on and off during the two hours we were there. When we looked over and saw that our stuff (clothes, backpacks, and camera gear) were completely white, we decided to go. What an awesome day!

Where The Wild Things Are

The Local Ring-tailed Cat

This cute, little critter has been living the good life at the Inn and has been outsmarting all the humans for a few weeks now! A cook took this picture during a mad chase through the kitchen one day. After several days of quick glimpses as it scurried through the kitchen, live traps were set out. However, those traps remained empty for a couple of weeks while card board boxes were being ripped into by the ring-tailed cat during the night. There have been no sightings in the last week, so it is thought that it has moved on to a quieter place.
These rarely seen animals are in the raccoon family, and are timid and nocturnal. They are solitary animals that live in rocky, desert regions. So, it's odd that it chose such a noisy place to take up residence for a few weeks, but it gave our staff some excitement and a good laugh. Andrew and I never got to see it though. To those of you that know that the bobcat story---I think it was scared of me!