Iva Bell Springs Hiking Trip Part 2

Somehow I have tried to condense the pictures to put on my blog but I have to warn you, it is hard between 4 cameras and almost 500 pictures!!!  EEEK!  I am loving looking back through them all! It was such an adventure and there was nothing like really getting to know these ladies better than in the woods, bonding over blistered feet, campfire stories, Iva Bells bathing (my fav.) and stretches of miles to walk with no cell reception (gasp!!)!

Our first night went well, besides Heather waking up when I stirred in the sleeping bag beside her and her thinking I was a bear!  Just a little bear paranoia with our group of girls after all the stories we heard and precautions we had to take (bear canisters for our food and anything scented locked up and put a nice distance away from our tents at night!)  There was another bit of mishap that night in the tent beside ours where Lorinda and Sue slept.  Lorinda put her bladder (for drinking) in their tent for the night and it soaked the bottom of Sue's sleeping bag and feet!!  I had a nice laugh the next morning when Lorinda woke and asked Sue if she peed her bed!!  

The weather was absolutely beautiful!!  Greg O. had hiked the same place three weeks before us and it snowed on him so I was a little nervous about getting cold.  (The day after we got out of the mountains, a rainstorm came in!!)  I was not one bit cold at night and we all slept in a bit the next morning, so by the time we finished our breakfast we were stripping clothes!  

We were all looking forward to a luxurious bath in Iva Bell Springs that morning.  Believe me, I packed shampoo, conditioner, soap, and even my shaver!!  I know, we are in the mountains, right?!  Let me tell you, though, I LOVED this luxury of a bath! It was pretty nice!!  I was giddy even with the thought of getting to the hot springs!  

Iva Bell Springs was our destination, so after thinking of this hike and talking about it for some time, I wondered if it could hold up to what I had fantasized it to be! IT DID!!!  It was a little smaller than I envisioned, a little swampier getting there than I had envisioned (I didn't think about that part!) and maybe a little slimier but after hiking in there, it was fabulous, not to mention that the scenery surrounding us was simply AWESOME!! I might mention too that there was more than one hot springs.  This was the lowest hot springs which was just above where we camped. There is also a middle hot springs and higher hot springs but the middle hot springs were not there this year (due to a short amount of rain, I believe!)!  I knew we should have hiked up to the highest hot springs because we heard they were the nicest but we were quite content with the lower one and we didn't even have to share it with any other hikers!

   

NICE!  Connie, Heather, and I

Our scenery around us!

Washing our hair out (outside the hot springs)

Sue and Lorinda rinsing their hair out with Connie's kitchen sink
 (told you she was the girl who brought everything!!)

Someone got this pic of me detangling my hair!

Heather helping Connie rinse her hair

The "after" pic when we were all feeling GREAT!   (Sue always reminded
us how to pose with our hands on our hips for the pics!!)

Fun pict of Heather and I with our matching visors!

The hot springs took on a little murky appearance after
 all our soaping and bathing!

Getting ready to break camp.  Love this pic of everyone
taking in the view for one last time!

Sue took the pic before getting ready to put our backpacks
on again and head down the trail.

The amazing view

Lorinda taking this pic

Supper time at our next camp (only about 4 1/2 miles down the trail)

The sun setting on the mountains was so gorgeous. 

Our third and final stopping place for our camp that night.

All of the wood stumps we hauled in for our chairs
 and we made our fire pit too!

..not to mention remove some smaller trees for our tents!

The nursing station!  

Heather getting her blisters taken care of by Gretchen!

another pict of our camp

Getting ready for the night.... and bears and such!

We hiked down to Fish Creek for the second night to break up the long hike back out.  Some volunteers(14 people)were also camping there so we had a hard time getting a good spot to set up camp. We moved three times, the first time realizing we were right between their tents and where they cooked their food and their bear canisters were located.  The second place we had already moved rocks for our fire pit when Sarah (the Sierra Club head cook and leader) informed us that we were right next to their Latrine and she also warned us that there was a good chance a bear may come in to camp since they had been there at least one night (and the people who camped there before them had a bear in camp).  That put enough scare into the girls to move down the hill closer to the other tents!!  We were camped pretty close to Sara, whom we decided we would rather be close to at night!  

So, it was rather comical when the girls went to bed with their bear spray and whistles around their necks (to scare off bears)that night.  We didn't even see one bear either.  I don't think Lorinda got any sleep that night either!!