Day 31: Virginia Creek, CA to Horton Creek BLM Campground CA

Day 31:

Tuesday, Oct 27, 2015  Virginia Creek to Horton Creek BLM Campground, CA

David strutting and jiving

Up early and out to take advantage of the heat from the cab portion instead of using our propane. 

We stopped to have a walk around the Tuffa mounds of Mono Lake.  These calcium chloride deposits are what is left of the old springs that were present when the lake was at a higher level (before Los Angeles started taking water from the streams that flowed into this saltwater lake).  Interesting and covered by our parks pass.

Mono Lake Tuffa mounds

Next stop on the HOT SPRING TOUR (which is what it would be named if David had his way) was Wild Willy’s hot spring in Mammoth Lakes, California.  A rather slow moving rough road to get back to it (1.5 miles or so) but the springs were nice and very warm. Even on this 55 degree day, I didn’t last long..  David went off to search for a hidden hot spring we heard about….   Given that it was going to rain, we elected to not stay overnight at Wild Willy’s hot spring (the roads get slick and mucky) but find a place that is closer to pavement.

Found what appeared to be a good spot when we looked out the window and saw that smoke from a wildfire was settling in the valley and going to make our air quality pretty bad by tomorrow a.m.  We gave up our boondocking site and headed south on 395 not knowing where we would end up and by now it was dark.  So desperate we got off 395 when we saw a sign for a conservation camp thinking since there wasn’t a lot of civilization around yet we could find somewhere just to do a quick overnight .  As luck would have it, we saw a sign for Horton Creek BLM campground and decided to investigate that thinking that it would be closed.  It was not and for $5.00 we secured a site…problem solved by pure dumb luck.

Wild Willies Hot Spring and one very happy man

The End