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Soaking at Mono Hot Springs
Aug. 11th, 2025 07:33 amKaiser Pass travelog #4
Mono Hot Springs · Sat, 9 Aug 2025, 2:15pm
As I was research hiking trails Thursday night in the vicinity of Kaiser Pass and the John Muir Wilderness most of what I found were long trails. Like, 6 miles was a short hop. Many ranged from 13 miles to 30+ miles, meant to be hiked over multiple days. That's great when you have the time, which we don't; and even the 6-7 mile types are great when you have time to acclimate to the high altitude, which we also don't. Thus it was cool that I found a trail that's much shorter, like just 1 mile. And it's mostly level (no 1,400'+ gain). And it goes past natural hot springs. It's the Mono Hot Springs trail!
Mono Hot Springs is way out in the middle of nowhere. The Kaiser Pass, where we 4x4ed/hiked earlier today, is already getting kind of far out. These springs are another 30 minutes of narrow, winding mountain roads further. That said, it was kind of crowded out here, comparatively. Short, level hikes to natural hot springs draw a lot of riffraff. 🤣
The parking lot at the lower end of the trail was full so we parked up here at the upper end. There wasn't actually a parking lot here such much as a big, round boulder with a flat-ish top. It's that one at the right edge of the pic above. We parked atop it— yay, real 4x4— and walked across the bridge to the trail on the far side.
Despite so many people around, the trail felt quiet and isolated— in places. Those places were not next to the hot springs, of course. Near where the hot water flowed and tubs had been built to contain it, people were around.
We found a natural hot spring bath with a nice view of the river to soak in. Well, Hawk soaked in it while I sat on a rock above it. I didn't feel like having silt between my toes. Because this was a natural pool, dammed off with rocks. A few pools on the trail are like this. Elsewhere along the trail are a few concrete tubs. Those are hella crowded.
Mono Hot Springs · Sat, 9 Aug 2025, 2:15pm
As I was research hiking trails Thursday night in the vicinity of Kaiser Pass and the John Muir Wilderness most of what I found were long trails. Like, 6 miles was a short hop. Many ranged from 13 miles to 30+ miles, meant to be hiked over multiple days. That's great when you have the time, which we don't; and even the 6-7 mile types are great when you have time to acclimate to the high altitude, which we also don't. Thus it was cool that I found a trail that's much shorter, like just 1 mile. And it's mostly level (no 1,400'+ gain). And it goes past natural hot springs. It's the Mono Hot Springs trail!
Mono Hot Springs is way out in the middle of nowhere. The Kaiser Pass, where we 4x4ed/hiked earlier today, is already getting kind of far out. These springs are another 30 minutes of narrow, winding mountain roads further. That said, it was kind of crowded out here, comparatively. Short, level hikes to natural hot springs draw a lot of riffraff. 🤣
The parking lot at the lower end of the trail was full so we parked up here at the upper end. There wasn't actually a parking lot here such much as a big, round boulder with a flat-ish top. It's that one at the right edge of the pic above. We parked atop it— yay, real 4x4— and walked across the bridge to the trail on the far side.
Despite so many people around, the trail felt quiet and isolated— in places. Those places were not next to the hot springs, of course. Near where the hot water flowed and tubs had been built to contain it, people were around.
We found a natural hot spring bath with a nice view of the river to soak in. Well, Hawk soaked in it while I sat on a rock above it. I didn't feel like having silt between my toes. Because this was a natural pool, dammed off with rocks. A few pools on the trail are like this. Elsewhere along the trail are a few concrete tubs. Those are hella crowded.
