I arrived at the hot spring at about 3:30 and set up a slightly illegal camp out of sight of the road (camping is only allowed in the established campground there, but the campground is closed for the season). As I was snapping tent poles together, I heard three gunshots not more than a half mile distant, and a few minutes later a man with a gun and a four-year-old boy walked by reporting that his brother had just killed a deer. It seems that every man in this state hunts – with millions of acres of public land and under a million people in the state, it is still impossible to get very far from the shooters.
Tent erected, I took my new Tolkien book, The Children of Hurin, down to the hot springs and tweaked the diversion channels to cool the pool of a bit. I was soon joined by four young folks from Jackson, and we had a good time soaking and talking until darkness fell and they left. At some point we noticed a bird pecking at our clothes – an American Dipper. As it turns out, a trio of Dippers have taken up residence below Granite Falls, and I watched them constantly bobbing into the water and chasing each other around, occasionally walking almost right up to me.
The night was clear, and I woke at 3 am to see the Great Cow of Orion overhead. The temperature dropped off well into the 20s, but I had plenty of clothes to keep warm. I woke at dawn but read in my tent until the frost melted, then wandered down to the hot spring for more reading. A few people came by to look at the falls, but no one joined me in the pool. I took a couple of self portraits (posted here), and tried to get photos of the dippers but had trouble with lenses fogging in the steam from the spring.
I drove to Jackson for lunch and groceries, then came home and finished the book (which has the most unsatisfying ending of any fantasy book I have read). Back to the birdramps tomorrow – alone as Kate is in Seattle until Thursday.
