'No Canister Required' Tour - Day 9 Iva Bell Hotsprings to Reds Meadows Resort

(Click any photo to enlarge) I was up first as usual to make coffee for us and to take a few morning photos. The day had a melancholy feel as we all knew it was our last day. On one hand we crave hot showers, cold Negra Modelo and Mexican food, but on the other none of us want to leave our simple outdoor existence. One of the best things about long hikes is the pure simplicity of the daily routine. Everything we need is held within a small backpack. Re-entering the 'real world' is not something we look forward to. With that said we still packed up and started our 14 mile walk to Reds Meadows. After about an hour we came to the Island Crossing Bridge on Fish Creek. Very pretty area. There were many pools that held nice size trout. (Imagine that with a name like Fish Creek) We eventually exited the Fish Creek drainage and turned Northeast toward Reds. We left the shade of the aspens and entered a granite dominated drainage that we would follow to our destination. There were places where the trail was star drilled (chiseled) right out of the granite. Even though there were no passes today, the trail had a lot of ups and downs and was VERY overgrown. Our legs were scratched and bloody by the time we started to see day hikers on their way to Rainbow Falls, a popular day hike (2 miles) from Reds Meadows. Its funny how your hiking tempo increases over the course of a long walk. As we came upon day hikers we would blow by them like they we standing still. We saw more people in the last two miles than we did on the whole trip. Everyone seemed to smell so good. I think it was because we smelled so bad (except Christi of course). I became immediately aware of my trail stench. We arrived at the resort and went into the store and bought a couple of cold beers. We walked outside to take our finish photo and to wait for the shuttle to arrive. The shuttle took us to the waiting Black Rocket in the Mammoth Mtn Ski area parking lot. What a trip! Not one blister between the three of us in 120 miles. I'll call that a successful outing.