The Scenery from the hot springs

While we were at the second hot spring, an orange dragonfly came by and was kind enough to light so I could take its picture. Wildflowers were scattered among the rocks, too.

Mono Hot Springs Inviting!

We returned to the river and climbed carefully over the slick rocks to reach to natural springs. Miguel had a hurt tendon he wanted to soak in the hot water. Elsa was not prepared for the mud and rocks with her sandals. We found two of the five springs. As you can see, Miguel was our guide over the rocks from the first spring to the second. The first one was the hottest, so we returned to it to soak until the thunder sounded and the rain began to fall.

Mono Hot Springs

The Mono Hot Springs Resort was established in the 1920s. There is a rejuvenated bath house, where you can sit in the water from the natural hot springs, or you can take a bath inside the bath house with the spring water. Massages are offered, too. There are cottages for rent, a general store and a restaurant. We continued back to the natural hot springs.

San Joaquin River

When we finally made it down to the river, it was beautiful! We were hungry, and, of course, Miguel had packed a snack for us. We enjoyed crackers and cheese as we sat on the rocks and enjoyed the view. Little did we know that we were just a brief walk from the actual hot springs. We would drive on only to find out that we had missed them.

The Journey Down to Mono Hot Springs

The road is very narrow road - one lane! We sporadically honked as we approached another blind curve or hair-pin turn. They seemed to be endless! The first picture shows the view from the edge of the road. The granite rock seen in the top picture is Bear Mountain. It is supposed to be the backside of a bear.

Kaiser Peak

Thursday, we decided to visit Kaiser Peak and Mono Hot Springs. Elsa remembered that it took quite a while to reach the hot springs and that the dirt road to the peak was deeply rutted, but not how twisted and narrow the road became. We had quite a trip for a short sixteen-mile jaunt! With my careful driving, we took two hours to arrive at the hot springs!

The above pictures are from Kaiser Peak. At the pass the elevation given was 9,182 feet! The top picture is of the pink flowers which thrive in the granite grannies. The second picture is of two large pieces of granite that perch as if they are going to topple at any moment. Elsa wanted a picture of me pushing on them, but I chose not to continue out to the edge! Chicken!

The third picture is the view from the top. In the distance is Edison Reservoir. It is part of the Eastman series of lakes.

We had a great day, however! The views were spectacular!

Second Day

Elsa and I were determined to kayak. We returned to Rancheria to rent the kayaks. We were glad that we chose to rent from that end of the lake because the wind comes up about 10:00 in the morning and blows toward that end of the lake. We were able to navigate up the lake against the wind and float casually on the return. We crossed the lake, headed up a finger past a Boy Scout camp to the entrance of a little creek. The far side of the lake is home to several camps for boys and girls. I wish I had gone to a camp like these. They all fronted the lake and had kayaks, small sailboats, canoes, motor boats. The campers were out learning how to navigate with these various means of transportation. They looked like they were having a great time!

The Ledo race was back on that day, too, so we had to watch carefully to stay out of the way of the sailboats. There were two different groups racing. On Tuesday, the racers had been divided into two groups - the gold and the silver. They were racing in their respective groups as we kayaked. It was great fun to be on the lake and watch the sailboats.

Eventually, we started back across the lake between the two racing groups. We hurried to make it before the boats returned to the middle of the lake. We had managed to kayak about three miles back to where the cabin is located. Altogether, we crossed about six miles! We felt great!