Day 17 – 9/10/19

24 miles – 326.7

Oh how glorious it was to get 11 hours of sleep last night. We knew we wanted to get to Alvord Hot Springs tonight, 23ish miles away, but somehow convinced ourselves it was totally fine sleep in and have breakfast when the cafe opened at 8. We didn’t end up leaving until after 9am.

Our first sight of the day was Borax Hot Springs, which really isn’t that much to look at, just a shallow lake with signs warning that it’s full of arsenic. Oh, and flies. Lots and lots of flies that love whatever’s in that water.

From Borax, we had a whole bunch of cross country miles. Some were slugging through marsh, some tiring weaving around sagebrush or lumpy crusty ground. But there was also some wonderful dried lakebed walking across Alvord Lake, and later on across the Alvord Desert.

All day storm clouds loomed to the west over the Steens, but we seemed to always stay one step ahead of it as it moved down into the valley. We did end up getting rained on briefly in the afternoon, but not for long. All the clouds made for beautiful skies and comfortable temperatures walking.

The ODT official route for some reason never goes onto the desert, but stays on the gravel road along side it. I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t just walk the desert. I felt a bunch of giddiness from actually having Type I fun on this hike today. Most of the ODT has been more in the Type II/sufferfest category. Today the weather was comfortable, the walking straightforward but still adventurous, and the nice views constant.

We arrived at the Alvord hot springs about 6:30pm and stopped by the office to pay for camping for the night. We were delighted to find a well stocked fridge of beer and soda, as well as a bunch of frozen microwaveable foods like hot pockets. Had we known the food selection would be this good (and very reasonably priced) we’d have packed out less from Fields.

We picked up a couple of beers and headed right to the hot springs to soak. The entire campus of the hot springs is….not the most aesthetically pleasing. There are a bunch of ugly expanded storage containers that serve as bunk accommodations for rent that do not do anything for charm or view. But the hot springs pool itself is nice. We soaked for maybe an hour with half a dozen other visitors before calling it a night.