Calling where we stopped today “Granite Creek Hot Springs” is both true and a bit misleading. A more accurate description would be “along side a dirt road in the middle of nowhere next to the Boise River”. Our goal today was to make it to the first hot springs on the trajectory away from Pine, and we did - actually we made it to the second one. But first was 11 miles of paved road to Fayetteville, where I bought a grapefruit water from a nice lady running the bar there. Then it was off on a dirt road up 3000 feet to Rocky Bar. I was really worried about this trip because it was going to be at least as hard as the first two days of riding, which totally kicked my butt. But actually, I got through it with flying colors. Don’t get me wrong, it was hard, but I didn’t have those moments where I wanted to die. Actually parts of it, especially on the way down, were kind of fun. And the scenery was beautiful. We rolled in to Phifer Creek Hot Springs, but it…wasn’t that great. It had gotten turned into just a shower, and it was only sort of warm. I used it anyway, but we ended up deciding to go on down the road; a guy in all camo named Dwayne told Kip that the next hot springs was way better, and he was right.
We had some trouble finding it, but once we did, yeah, it was nice. Deep, and hot. We ended up sharing it with a family of 4 folks; a 75 year old woman who used to commute to Washington DC, her boyfriend named Frosty, and her son who worked at Costco and his wife. They had a Corgi named Rocket who loved the water. I had a great time. I ended up spending an extra half hour in the spring after everyone left just thinking about my life. We made dehydrated camp food and slept out under the stars.
It was probably the best day of the trip so far.
