Goldmeyer Hot Springs 9.18.02

The Middle Fork road is it's usual bump fest but very passable. The turn off for the hot springs is a spur off the mainline that has a fishing regs sign and a sign with a L and a B with what appears to be a pear on it. Follow the branch that drops to the river. There is plenty of parking riverside. Cross the river beware the water can be treacherous (benign for this trip). There is a path on the other side that quickly takes you to the caretaker's cabin. The fee is $12/day/person, and only 20 people are allowed per day. We only saw 4 people during our stay, but we passed 7 on our way out. There are some great campsites along the river. The hotsprings themselves are about a half mile from the caretaker's cabin. The trail is about 250ft of climb but the trail is very well maintained. There is an outhouse and a dry place to keep your clothes. As are most mountain hotsprings clothing is optional so don't be suprised to see plenty of naked people. The spring is set in a cave that spills out into two lower pools. The water is would guesstimate to be around 104 in the cave. I had not been to the springs in 20 plus years,but it is very much the way I remember it. Please do your best to maintain it's unspoiled nature.

Ridge Lake, Edd's Lake 9.11.02

Left Alpental for Ridge Lake around 11 am under warm and sunny skies. The crest trail if about 2 miles longer than it should be on its meandering way to Ridge and Gravel Lakes. I camped on the south shore of Ridge Lake. The fish weren't really biting. There are some nice rainbows in Ridge and in Gravel there are rainbows, cutts and California Golden's, as well as every combination of the three species. The bugs were suprisingly bad for this time of year. The night was pretty mild and was pierced throughout the night with gunfire and war yells coming from the Alaska lake outlet. I guess it was someone's end of world pary. In the morning brought more bugs and nice weather so I set off for Edd's Lake. About a half mile from Ridge Lake there is a climber's trail to Bumblee Pass. The trail is very steep but it it pretty short once crested,it descends into the basin of Thompson Mt. I crossed the creek and dropped to the huge talus field on the west side of the creek. The rock is very unpleasent and a little tricky. I then dropped the remaining 800 feet to Edd's Lake. Travel around Edd's lake is fairly easy with the water level low. I saw many big California Goldens as well as some smaller rainbows. I managed to catch some twelve to fourteen inch fish. After my 2 hour stay I climbed the much easier east side of the creek and returned to camp. One curious side note, even though there was good flow in the creek flowing above Edd's lake there was no water flowing into the lake itself.

Alta Mt 9.3.02

I got a late start so I decided to do something closer to home. The trail to Rachel Lake in good shape as were all trails today. I had no problem finding the climbers trail to Alta and it was a pretty straightforward ascent. I climbed down about 300 vertical feet and left the trail and dropped to the southern edge of the lowest Alta Tarn. There is a good trail all the way to the two upper tarns and to Alta Pass. It seems that it would be easy to drop to Park Lakes and it might even be faster than the Mineral Creek trail( with driving included ). There appeared to be a climbers trail traversing to High Box Peak. All in all a good trip. NO BUGS, although it is starting to get quite chilly.