My family used to take a vacation yearly to stay in cabins at Silver City and go hiking in Mineral King valley. This would be the first family vacation in about five years where everyone was able to attend. Water in the rivers was too low to kayak unfortunately but at a sporting level for canyoning. My brother and I were both interested in doing something other than the same old hiking trails and so I easily talked him into going down the Lower East Fork of the Kaweah River. I had done this stretch once before a couple years earlier in low flow and so thought it would be a fun and straightforward adventure. As a bonus our mother volunteered to shuttle us, taking care of the biggest logistical concern. We hiked to the river in less than 15 minutes, dodging cowpies and poison oak, and suited up on the polished granite slabs. Despite wetsuits the initial shock of the water temperature caught us off guard but within minutes we had acclimatized and found the temperature perfect.
We swam and ambled along the shore until the river took its bend to the left where it plunged into the gorge. We found several places where we had to avoid hydraulics and choose our routes with care. Fortunately I remembered all the best locations to jump and slide and so we had a great time, taking multiple laps on the best features where possible. It was really nice to see my brother enjoying himself. At one point just before the big waterfall bypass my brother spotted a very healthy looking rattlesnake. In the pool below the waterfall he apparently spotted the biggest trout he had ever seen. I missed it.
We continued on. The slides were in good shape with the high water and were much more fun than I remember them being the last time. There were however two that I wished I passed on. One pinch snagged my leg and another rapid pushed my into an overhanging rock. I was thoroughly bruised and limping after the second mishap.
We took our time lapping the best slides but the high water also meant we had to choose our routes around some of the boulder gardens very carefully. It took us about 4 hours to reach Three Rivers where mom was waiting at the bridge for us. It was a hot midsummer's day and we were both glad to spend over two hours of it in the water. Thanks to mom and Michael.
In 2015 Yosemite National Park enacted the remarkably proactive policy of allowing kayakers on the upper Merced River, specifically the stretch of river in the hanging valleys above Vernal Falls and Nevada Falls. From Merced Lake there is a 7 mile stretch of mostly runnable Class IV-V whitewater. A couple weeks earlier I was invited to join a group of three packrafters on a 3 day trip to hike into the Merced from Tuolumne Meadows. Unfortunately for them the gauge they were using to judge flows was way out of calibration and so they were presented with a committing raging torrent and thus had to portage about 90% of the whitewater. In particular they had to completely portage Echo Gorge. Lucky for me Jeff was keen to have another try and flows had dropped into what he deemed ideal flow to take on the run and he had done it recently enough that he remembered every needed detail to minimize our scouting. I was dying for some excitement and this run promised to deliver so I had a marathon solo drive to Yosemite Valley. Thankfully Jeff was able to secure an overnight wilderness permit and a spot at the backcountry walk-in campsite in the valley. I showed up at 9p, was asleep by 9:30p, and we were up and at it at 6a. We hiked with overnight and boat gear up the Mist Trail, passing countless tourists despite our somewhat weighty packs. There would be one piece of gear I wished I brought: water shoes with grippy rubber instead of only my gripless running shoes. I had all my gear stowed in my pack but Jeff's one piece paddle in his hand was the subject of many quizzical looks and comments from tourists. The sight of Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls and the granite dome of Liberty Cap were as awespiring as I remembered. Once we continued hiking past the top of Nevada Falls it was all new scenery for me. We soon arrived at our campground in Little Yosemite Valley where we happily deposited all our food and overnight gear- the campground fortunately was right at the take out of our run. We continued hiking across the hot, fire ravaged Little Yosemite Valley.
The upper Merced run consists of Class IV-V granite bedrock gorges interspersed with easier/briefier/mankier flat sections. The trail kept most of the run in sight allowing us to scout as we hiked (the advantage of hiking up versus Jeff's previous hike down traversing trip). The water level did seem about right but I was surprised at the amount of impassible boulder sections- we would still be portaging a lot. From the bottom we hiked the long open flats of Little Yosemite Valley, bypassed a short gorge into Lost Valley, bypassed the formidable Bunnell gorge, crossed another little valley portion, took the long bypass around Echo gorge, traversed Echo Valley, then finally hiked alongside the final gorge to the outlet of Merced Lake. It felt like a long way but at least our packs were light and the trail was great. It was after 2p by the time we reached the lake; fortunately we'd have light until about 8p.
Looking into Echo Gorge towards Merced Lake
The first slide on the run
Merced Lake, just above our put-in
A quick snack of a bar and some gulps of water and we started paddling. The water and air temperature were such that I was quite comfortable in some thin neoprene bottoms and a rashguard top. We put in immediately above the first slide which had a nice chute shape making it near impossible to screw up- a fun introduction! I would have happily lapped it multiple times if it weren't for everything we had below to contend with. Next up was about 1000 ft of mazy boulder rapids before things cleaned up at a bedrock gorge.
Here we had a nice series of slide drops. Some were read-and-run but most we chose to scout and have a safety, just in case. We both managed to cleanly run about 10 drops in this section (no portages) until the very last 300 ft long slide, which had too many variables and so we portaged. We made good time through this section and being able to run so many of the drops was a nice confidence boost.
Another 1000 ft of boulder rapids (including some too shallow bottoming out sections) led to a solid mile of mostly flatwater through the scenic Echo Valley. The trail bridge over the river signaled the start of the formidable Echo Gorge. Jeff and Co bypassed this entire section last time. We would commit to ticking off as much as we could and suffer any heinous portages we would need to endure. Portages and lots of scouting seemed guaranteed.
We had to portage an impassible boulder garden just below the bridge. Here I got the first of several appreciations into just how lousy my shoes were on slippery slabs. I was getting worried. We spent a good long time scouting the first picturesque double drop before we both ran it. Another 1000 ft of mostly runnable boulder rapids brought us to another bedrock section.
Scouting at the start of Echo Gorge
The first rapid in the sequence had a narrow pinch at the top, a weird mid-drop roostertail we couldn't make sense of, and a unpleasant hydraulic at its base- too many variables and so we portaged. The next drop looked to be clean other than a strong pothole eddy that we thought might be difficult to break free of. It turned out to be fine for both of us and was one of the cleaner drops on the run. Two more clean slides, one long pool, then yet another 1000 ft of boulders, this time about half of it needed to be portaged.
We had now turned the corner and were staring down the final stretch to the end of the gorge. Four more drops to contend with. Jeff didn't like the look of the hydraulic at the bottom of the first drop. It did not look great but the portage traversing high on wet slab with frictionless shoes turned out to be even more terrifying for me and I had wished I had run it instead. This portage took quite some time and began to kill my enthusiasm for this run. We were having to portage too much for this to be a classic run. The second drop had a funny rock halfway down but ended up being quite a clean rapid- no issues. The third drop looked like nothing special and came shortly on the heels of the final drop (so we skipped it for a less stressful setup), the biggest single drop we would do, a solid 20 ft. Jeff went over sideways but otherwise managed to stick the landing. I zapped myself with adrenaline climbing the borderline slab back up to my boat. I was mentally exhausted by the time I pushed off and knew something bad would happen. Almost immediately the current pulled me off my line and as I tried to compensate I began to spin around backwards. I got in enough strokes to face downstream just in time as I was launched off the steepest leftmost edge of the drop (not where I wanted to be). Impact with the water was rough and it flipped me and pushed me under for two cycles before I was able to clear it. I beached myself on a rock. I had lost my paddle and the boat was stuck in a corner. After about 30 seconds my paddle appeared and I was able to retrieve it. After 5 minutes my boat was still bobbing in its corner. Jeff managed to carefully downclimb into the corner and free the boat. I had one more long slippery slab portage to contend with and we were clear of the gorge. I was a little shaken up and getting to be pretty over this run. About 1200 ft of rocks followed, then two more slides. The first slide sped you right into a terminal rock and so we passed on that one. The second was long but straightforward. We bumper boated down some more rocks and then peeled out onto the trail to bypass the worst of it.
Jeff had one long look at the menacing triple drops of Fear. It looked fun but potentially easy to screw up and hard to protect. Being late in the day was probably also a factor. We portaged this section but both decided to run Bunnell Cascade, a steep 200 ft long slide that starts in a ledgy waterfall and has another halfway down. We push into the slide just below the top drop. Jeff had a clean run and made it look easy. He gave me advice of angling into the flow at the top which I followed. This did not have the affect he suggested and as I picked up speed the flow spun me around backwards as I headed for the ledge drop. Some serious adrenaline kicked in and I managed to get in a couple adjusting strokes to spin around to face forward at the last split second before dropping over the ledge, careening down the rest of the slide, and skimming across the pool at the bottom. That was a little scary! Fun in hindsight but I didn't feel like I needed to lap it to try and screw it up worse!
Looking at Fear
Jeff on Bunnell Cascade (and below)
Almost a mile of shallow boulders, minor drops, and flatwater brought us to the final slide, the one I had been looking forward to. Man this slide looked fun! A wide smooth 300ft long slab of granite that leads you in and then rolls over to a steep finale the last 100 ft. We took time to scout, Jeff pointed out his line just right of the prominent roostertail and had first go. With a tad of adrenaline I lined up, blasted right through the roostertail, and picked up considerable speed; in the last 50 ft I managed to somehow go sideways and recklessly ricocheted across the pool, dramatically flipping. I had fun up until the end and wanted to redeem myself so I lapped the slide again. The second was flawless. And so was the third. This was easily the best slide I've ever done- the sheer speed and steepness of it were unmatched. For all the effort and portaging we had to face on the run above I felt like I could have (and perhaps should have) spent all day just lapping this final slide. The run was OK. This slide was truly world class.
We undoubtedly would have taken several more laps on this slide except it was already 8p and we were losing light fast with 2.5 miles of loggy flatwater to go to reach camp. Logs required a few in-river portages. Several shallow logs made navigating in the low light difficult. I probably made it about a mile before deciding to pull out my headlamp. Paddling in the evening was still remarkably comfortable- I don't recall a single thought concerning temperature crossing my mind. All was still and peaceful. The worst log jam was just before the campground and so we detoured over to the trail and walked the final bit to camp. I was tired, sore, and moving pretty slow but eventually managed to sort gear, eat dinner, and settle into my sleeping bag.
Nevada Falls
Vernal Falls
We woke up about 7a and were soon hiking back down the Mist Trail. Not much to note except now we where hiking against the flow of tourists presenting an extra nuisance. We made it back to the cars in good time. Jeff still had a couple days to kill before his next excursion but I was feeling the pull of work and so said my goodbye and drove on to home. Thanks to Jeff for yet another memorable trip. Thanks to Yosemite for making such stunning whitewater open for low impact boating; hopefully other parks like Yellowstone eventually follow suit.
As far as California hot springs go this one is thankfully a little off the beaten path, in this case 8 miles off the Pacific Crest Trail in the Sierras near Mammoth. I somewhat foolishly tried to approach the hot springs over new year's 2013 from Horseshoe Lake. Mammoth had unseasonably low snow accumulation which I thought might make the trip possible but they had a truly anomalous high wind event a few weeks before. This combination led to thousands of downed trees along the trail (some logs piled three high) and soft post hole snow that was a formidable combination; we only made it 3 miles in and camped at the edge of Crater Meadow. A visit to Iva Bell had been on my mind since but it took over 4 years until I found the opportunity. Being mid-Sierra hiking season I dreaded the permit logistics. We drove up on August 4th, made it to the Lone Pine Visitor Center by 4:40p, and in 5 minutes were out the door with permit in hand for a August 5th start. I was amazed and thankful for the simplicity! We borrowed a bear can from my Mammoth family, packed, and caught up with them a little. We opted to camp at Hilltop Hot Springs, which unfortunately was a lot busier than I hoped and so we didn't even try to soak.
The nest morning we had a leisurely morning and tasty breakfast before driving up to Horseshoe Lake. We made good time on the trail, hiking past McCloud Lake, over Mammoth Pass, and past Upper Crater Meadow where we joined the superhighway of the Pacific Crest Trail. The wildflowers were out in force; the mosquitoes were relentless. We veered off the trail where the PCT traverses above Fish Valley for a quick lunch. I could see the area where the hot springs were, a mere 1.5 miles as the crow flies but nearly 5 more hours of hiking for us.
McCloud Lake
After a little more than 7 hours of trail hiking from my car it was time to veer off for my cross country route I scouted from Google Earth. We would only have to go about a mile and drop 2000' but this was easier said than done. The top of the route started as pleasant traverses over granite slickrock with ancient looking trees, but things quickly got steeper requiring us to carefully downclimb a loose gully. Then we had to bushwhack for what seemed like forever. Carefully skirt around a spring guarded by nasty stinging nettles, then more insulting bushwhacking to finally reach Fish Creek. This took a full 3 hours, about three times longer than I could have imagined. It did cut 13 miles off of our route though.
View looking down my shortcut cross country route (and next two)
We managed to botch our first creek crossing (fast flowing with large slippery rocks) and so retreated and tried at the proper trail crossing 250 ft further. The mosquitoes were a black cloud. It was 5p by the time we crossed the creek. We were both feeling a little tired but we still had some miles to make.
Fish Creek
After a water break at the bizarre trail summit between upper and lower Fish Valley, we ambled down the long switchbacks and guessed at an unmarked trail that seemed to lead towards the hot springs area. I was surprised at the lack of trail signs and the complex spidery trail network- it would take us hours of exploration to fully examine this little area. We walked through some larger camps and ended up choosing a really nice campsite next to the two lowest hot spring pools. Unfortunately about every mosquito in existence seemed to take interest in us. I am sure I have experienced worse mosquitoes but I can't remember when. They were a cloud. They ignored repellent. They bit at every opportunity. They were so bad it was a struggle to think and it was all we could do to quickly boil water and eat dinner hidden in the tent. We hoped the mosquitoes would ease once it got dark but they were still ravenous. We did discover that they seemed to be minimal when we were soaking in the hot springs, maybe something about the heat or steam confusing their senses. We enjoyed a starry night from the pool closest to camp, and then a good night's sleep.
Camp
The next day we quickly abandoned the more lofty plans of side hiking 14 miles to Bettlebug Lake and instead spend the day exploring the Iva Bell area. The ~40 acre area is a sloping meadow coated in wildflowers and crosscrossed by closely spaced springs, some cold and some warm. I used my phone to map all the camps, pools, and trails as we came across them. We worked our way up the hillside, marveling at the several voluminous orange travertine mounds. I even found a [spidery] sauna cave! As a bonus the further up the hill we went the stronger the breeze and the fewer the mosquitoes. The highest pool was easily my favorite (frontispiece). It was a well built rock lined pool perched atop a travertine mound with great shade and a commanding view. It was designed such that the pool temperature could easily be adjust by selectively deflecting the hot source creek. In total we found six very nice soaking pools and at least two others that could be developed. We spent quite a bit of the day exploring, soaking, replenishing our water, and soaking some more. We got a few minutes of rain from passing thunderstorms which had us hoping for more. We cooked dinner at the halfway pools and sat in the pools as the sunset (this pool the mosquitoes did not play fair).
Sunset from a hot pool
We woke up early for one more quick soak before packing. The butt kicking elevation gain and long miles to regain the Mammoth Lakes Basin meant that we opted to take an alternate route via the 11 mile trail down the valley and up to Reds Meadow as most people approach the hot springs. We'd figure out the shuttle situation on the fly to get back to our car. The early start and cool morning meant we made excellent time hiking down the valley to "Island Crossing". Here we had a major snafu. We crossed the creek where it had four braids at Island Crossing per the topo map but were alarmed to not find any cairns or signs at the crossing. Once across the cut trail could only be intermittently followed. I was surprised and confused. We were on the trail according to the map but there was no recent footprints. For about 45 minutes we crossed the stubbornly overgrown debris fan until, with a slight clearing, I could see a sizable bridge down below us. Ugh! The topo map I had was old and apparently the trail was rerouted with a stock bridge. We shook off the annoyance of over an hour of wasted effort, then climbed the switchbacks into the heating sun.
As we turned the corner into the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin we enjoyed the lush meadows and in particular the portions of the trail that traversed the granite slickrock. We then began to run into much more traffic. The trail was long in the heat of the day but the rest went without much excitement. I was very interested to see the underfit valley of Crater Creek which seems to have formerly held the San Joaquin until lava flowed into the valley and forced it to deflect.
We hiked through the burned forest and had a quick detour to Rainbow Falls. Now the trail was busy! We managed to jump on the first shuttle that arrived just as we did to Reds Meadow. It was a long shuttle ride standing the whole way but we made it to Main Lodge. Less than 5 minutes wait and we were on the free shuttle to Mammoth Village. Less than 5 minutes wait again and we were sitting on the free trolley to the lakes basin which dropped us off right at the car. I was quite impressed at the clockwork of the shuttles and how smoothly everything worked out given our improvisation.
A tasty pizza dinner and a relaxing evening with family topped off the trip. Coordination with Jeff did not seem like it was going to work out so we drove back to Riverside the next day. I would say Iva Bell Hot Springs ranks among the top 10% of hot springs I have visited. I was thrilled to finally be able to check it out. They were geologically fascinating, scenically impressive, and boasted several top quality soaks. Oh the mosquitoes though!
