To Muir Trail Ranch For Hot Tubs and Resupply

Campsite Near the Hot Springs at MTR

It's a spectacular morning after the storms of the night before, bright and clear with the washed blue sky, albeit a bit chilly. There's a mass backpacker exodus, we see lines leaving the area, again no hurry for us because we bookended by our mule train resupply on the 14th.

It's an easy down on the trail until the MTR cutoff, that trail is steep and rocky and won't be great to come back up with fully loaded packs, there's a short cut that eliminates this section but also misses a few miles of the JMT so we'll just suffer through it.

We're hoping for a cabin at MTR, it's kinda expensive but having a hot meal and a real bed is attractive, we talked to a woman who got in last night so hopes are high, we couldn't reserve online because it's a 2 night minimum, meaning it would be $700 for us.

We see a large of backpackers at a trail junction, we're initially a bit nervous that they might be also looking for a cabin at MTR, as it happens they're only out for 3 days and not looking to stay.
Down to another junction and it's fully in the sun and now quite warm, the ranch has a gate with a sign and looks quite rustic, as you might expect, alas they're fully booked for the tonight and tomorrow a large group is arriving that has reserved the whole place, maybe some Silicon Valley corporate team building exercise.

We check our resupply, it has arrived, happiness, then we discover they do have a limited internet access, no WiFi but a laptop you can rent for 15 minutes, Elena checks while I wait and then someone comes up and the staff person insists that he go next, even as I explain that we're together, he doesn't seem to be impressed by that so I just sit down and start typing.

It's a good thing I checked, one of my tenants deposit bounced so I can communicate with her. There's no cooking allowed on the ranch so we head outside the gate to a rock to eat and try to stay away from all the horse poop, no need to pick up the resupply yet.

Next thing is to find the much anticipated hot springs, we have an extra day here so no problem with that, we follow a trail down near the river, there's a no camping zone and we keep going past it and find the river by what looks like a camp spot, it's the San Joaquin and it's moving pretty fast here, it's impassable when the water get's higher, still a tricky crossing, the water moves fast and there are lotsa rocks on the stream bed, we creep across very slowly using poles to balance, falling into the water would not be good.

Across safely and we can't find a trail leading away from the river, they all seem to just run parallel, a bit frustrating as we walk up and down the river looking for a path, then someone on the other side informs to go downstream to where a rope crosses the river, we forgot about that, from there a tread way leads out into a field and we'll find the hot springs.

Beautiful Flowers Growing in the Vicinity

This is good information and from there it's easy, we see a clump of trees across the field with some clothes hanging off a fence and head off towards it, there are 3 women in the pool and they give us the lowdown, this spring is the biggest and is the middle temperature, back across the field a bit is another smaller spring that's hot so we head back to it, it IS quite hot, I guess the temp about 103 degrees, the water is very clear until you get in and stir up the bottom.

It feels great and we can also wash our clothes, this will be the last hot water we see till the end of the trail, about 11 days away, so we wanna take full advantage. The women have told us that there's a lake close by where the water is not quite as cold as most of the other lakes we've seen where the water is generally too cold for me to swim, this is a little bit warmer so it's in for a dip, it's an amazing feeling, all tingly after getting out and it's really reviving and refreshing washing off all the trail stress and sweat.

The springs are located in a large field that's damp from the outflow of the springs so we head back closer to the river to look for a campsite, there are some nice ones in amongst the rocks, there's no one else there yet so we have the pick, it's quite low here for the JMT so camp fires are allowed, our site has a fire ring near a big boulder that doesn't look too accessible, and a big log parallel to the ground to hang our wet clothes and packs from, very convenient.

Cosy Campfire After a Dip in the Springs

The leave no trace principles frown on setting up new fire rings but I don't like this one and see a nice looking site inside some rocks that provide most of the ring so decide to simply move the fire and cover up the old fire ring to make it invisible.

It works well and we get a nice fire going, we can sit on the rocks surrounding it to stay warm. Later some other campers arrive and head off the check out the hot springs.