Day 31, Friday, July 17, 2015
Start campsite 8J4 20-146CG, mile 1972.0
End 20-271TH trailhead, mile 1984.5, then WALK 7 miles north on park road to Grant Village.
Heart Lake opens the morning, with Mount Sheridan in background.
The lake has a long sandy shore. No early fishermen were stirring.
Then following Witch Creek, going along the Lake Geyser Basin, we find dozens of hot springs, steaming and simmering, surrounded by mineral deposit and sometimes sulfur smell.
Some simmer, others go at a rolling boil. Regulations forbid soaking in a hot spring, if you could find one cool enough, but you are allowed to soak in a creek that a hot spring spills into.
In one dry area along the path, I could feel warmth on the face. Bending down, touching the trail, and it feels warm. No springs or steam vents are nearby, just warm ground.
Within a couple of miles of the trailhead other backpackers and day hikers pass the other direction. Few hikers compared to an earlier trailhead like in the Winds.
Reaching the trailhead.
I get to the trailhead at noon, and can find no one to beg a ride. I should have waited longer. The road to Grant Village is narrow, busy, with no shoulder at all. No one had room to pull over and offer a ride. Seven miles later, with weary legs, Grant Village comes into view at 3PM.
I called during the walk to see if they could reserve a tent site at the campgrounds in the village, and was assured cyclists and hikers would not be turned away. I get my food supply box at the post office, register my tent site and put up my tent, get a shower, and do laundry.
While doing laundry I chat with James, who did the PCT in 2011, and is one year off from my age.
He is hitching and hiking a week in the park, before returning home to do some house repairs for a friend needing to sell a house.
We keep running into each other in the village.
This is Hank the Cow Dog.
Hank and these two guys are hitching from Missouri, after which one of them will start freshman year in college.
Andrew just graduated from Perdue with a mechanical engineer degree. He is completing the Transamerica Bike Tour before his job starts.
Here is Bob, , Andrew’s father. They are doing the bike tour together!!
There is something charming about a busy public campground in a cool location like a national park, where people are willing to open up and share their stories.