Noam and I drove up to Huntington Lake on Friday and stayed at one of the hellish frontcountry campgrounds there. Just as I was dozing off, I was awakened by a banging noise, which Noam described as "two cretins with a hammer." Saturday we drive up to Florence Lake to catch the first ferry which was delayed for nearly an hour, in classic Florence Lake ferry style, while the captain cleaned her refrigerator.
A meadow on the hike from the ferry to Muir Trail Ranch:
I had forgotten where the cut-off trail to Muir Trail Ranch was, apparently, because we walked right by it. We turned this in to a happy mistake by pretending we had intended to do this in order to hike a triangle up Sallie Keyes cut-off, down the John Muir trail, then back to the trail ranch. Noam on the John Muir trail:
Score! I found this bag of trail mix on the trail. Noam expressed disgust that I intended to eat it, which I scoffed at, but truth be told it is still sitting in my food box at Wishon and I am as yet too chicken to eat any of it. If I bake it into chocolate chip cookies it will be sanitized by the heat, right?
Tent cabin #1, otherwise known as the Tenthouse Penthouse, our accommodation at Muir Trail Ranch:
After checking in and resting for a bit, Noam and I crossed the San Joaquin river on the log jam below to check out the natural hot springs and warm lake in Blayney Meadow across the river.
The log crossing was a little sketchy because you had to drop down about five feet to get on it, and it was high over a fast and deep part of the river. I crossed it on all fours, and I don't care who knows. On the way back, we opted to just ford the San Joaquin instead at the shallowest, widest spot we could find. I thought it was challenging and I had water shoes and a walking stick, I have no idea how Noam made it across in bare feet with no stick. The warm lake was beautiful, right at the foot of Ward Mountain, warmer than the river though not particularly warm. At the hot springs we first met Molly and Steve, two hikers who we would run into at the ferry the following day after they decided to give up on finishing the John Muir trail. They were so fun to talk to that I ended up driving them all the way to Fresno so they could rent a car to go retrieve their car from Whitney Portal on the eastern side of the Sierra.
A meadow on the hike from the ferry to Muir Trail Ranch:
I had forgotten where the cut-off trail to Muir Trail Ranch was, apparently, because we walked right by it. We turned this in to a happy mistake by pretending we had intended to do this in order to hike a triangle up Sallie Keyes cut-off, down the John Muir trail, then back to the trail ranch. Noam on the John Muir trail:
Score! I found this bag of trail mix on the trail. Noam expressed disgust that I intended to eat it, which I scoffed at, but truth be told it is still sitting in my food box at Wishon and I am as yet too chicken to eat any of it. If I bake it into chocolate chip cookies it will be sanitized by the heat, right?
Tent cabin #1, otherwise known as the Tenthouse Penthouse, our accommodation at Muir Trail Ranch:
After checking in and resting for a bit, Noam and I crossed the San Joaquin river on the log jam below to check out the natural hot springs and warm lake in Blayney Meadow across the river. 
The log crossing was a little sketchy because you had to drop down about five feet to get on it, and it was high over a fast and deep part of the river. I crossed it on all fours, and I don't care who knows. On the way back, we opted to just ford the San Joaquin instead at the shallowest, widest spot we could find. I thought it was challenging and I had water shoes and a walking stick, I have no idea how Noam made it across in bare feet with no stick. The warm lake was beautiful, right at the foot of Ward Mountain, warmer than the river though not particularly warm. At the hot springs we first met Molly and Steve, two hikers who we would run into at the ferry the following day after they decided to give up on finishing the John Muir trail. They were so fun to talk to that I ended up driving them all the way to Fresno so they could rent a car to go retrieve their car from Whitney Portal on the eastern side of the Sierra. 
please don't eat that trail mix. Compost it! That's why we have composters!
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