The Johnsons' Journal

Wednesday we woke to a very chilly morning. It was cold but at least dry. Making breakfast and coffee in the morning, let alone getting out of the sleeping bags was painful. We bundled ourselves up in all the cold gear we had and headed up to the Mammoth Hot Springs.

Dormant Hot Springs

Some of the springs were nice, some were boring, many had seen more active days in the past and now lie dormant and dry. It is still very impressive to see the magnitude of the growth of these pools and streams of boiling water.

Looks like a Dali painting

Later that afternoon after warming ourselves in the Visitor Center and having a picnic of “Cup-o-Noodles” in the park in the center of town we went for a hike.

Great view of the valley north of Mammoth

The destination of this hike was a collection of ponds called “Beaver Ponds”. The solitude was amazing, we only saw one other hiker and a few Forest Rangers building a few stream crossings along the 5 mile jaunt. At the last and largest of the ponds we found a comfortable rock to sit on and had a snack and rest.

Lunch overlooking Beaver Pond

Unfortunately along with the lack of humans, there seemed to be a lack of wildlife as well. On the hike which was supposed to be frequented by elk, deer and to a lesser extent bears, we saw nothing but a few ducks on the ponds and this little fellow.

Our hiking buddy

This bird was chilling right on the path and wasn’t very interested in moving until we got only a few feet away. Then he proceeded to lead the way for us along the hiking trail for a few hundred feet, stopping every 5 or 10 feet to see that we were still behind him.

After returning back to our camp, the afternoon sun was beginning to set and the temperature was beginning to drop. We decided to take in what little sun was left in the day and walked to the next campsite over where there was less shade, opened a bottle of wine and read until the sun had set beyond our camp.

Wine, Book, Sun, life is good