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!