Bear Valley Hot Springs, Again!
5-29-13
There must be somewhere on earth that I would rather be than this HS, but I have yet to identify it!
Downloadable Power Point Slide Show of this Hike!

The gem of the forest... and of Idaho	And yes, I know these are redundant, but I love this place so much!
	Freckles crosses those wobbly rocks. Took him a long time to work up the nerve!
The main source, must emerge from the ground between 120-130 degrees	The secondary spring. It isn't quite as hot, nor near the streamflow as #1
The Campsite. The tarps are due to the fact that when we arrived it was a downpour!	Ezra struggles up the cliff (right! I'm the only one who 'struggles')
Bear Valley creek down from the HS near where it joins with Marsh Creek to form the Middle Fork of the Salmon River.	'Course Ezra is wondering, 'Where the he-- is all that water going anyway. I need a drink!
Really difficult to see from this picture, but this is the confluence of Bear Valley & Marsh Creeks, and is called the 'Big Hole', because it is just that. A popular fisherman's destination.	Ok, while I recognize that this is definitely 'flora' not 'fauna', what the heck is it?? Looks like a bunch of small cabbage heads!
After seeing a number of these obvious erosive pits, I couldn't help but wonder, 'what in the world'. Then, in a flash, I realized: 1) I'm in a burn area; & 2) they obviously been 'bombing' this ridge with the water tankers. Dropping a 'zillion' gallons of water at once on a mountain top is bound to create a little damage... and it does.	Freckles is wondering how he got mixed up with such a bunch of nut cases!
Coffee Bean (Yeah, I know its a silly name, but there is a reason for it) notes that all the other guys are 'over there'. Must be much better grazing there. I gotta get 'goin'.	This is the normal area of trail crossing. Ya want to? Go fer it!
And the meandering little stream...	And this is the point where the trail starts to cross 'death ridge'.
Taken from the TH bridge, this creek drains a lot of this end of Bear Valley. That's a lot of water to dispense with!