...... has over 3.5 million acres of wilderness. That’s a pretty massive playground, and a lot of space to get lost in.
We drove out west from Utah, past salt flats that look like ice sheets and into the Ruby Mountains, aka the Swiss Alps of Nevada.
We were there to fly wingsuits, but we had a secondary agenda of hot spring hunting...
... two things that actually go pretty well together.
Lamoille Canyon has a three thousand foot cliff, called Colossus, and you can wind your way up to the highest ground through granite gullies filled with cliffs, giant boulders and ancient trees. It’s a lot of up, but the views are beyond spectacular.
I didn’t know this area was home to shaggy white mountain goats—we spotted a pair scampering up a massive slab out in the distance, and then made our way to the top of the cliff while keeping an eye on another pair on our side of the mountain. We didn’t get close enough to bother them, but they seemed to be watching us as much as we were watching them. Luckily, they were at a different overlook, and we didn’t have to negotiate over the exit point.
The Colossus flight is a lot like some of the nicer wingsuit jumps in the Alps—you can follow a curving flight right next to the wall for almost the entire way down the mountain, so it’s well worth the long climb up for such a gorgeous flight!
With some loose information about hot springs floating around in our heads, we decided to explore the area around Lamoille Canyon and see what we could find. Lots of dirt road driving, some more mountain passes, and then a final and super unlikely drive on deeply rutted roads took us to a kind of unnervingly deep and very hot spring, literally in the middle of nowhere.
Although I’d recently been informed about some crazy hot spring dwelling parasite that burrows into your brain (but not to worry, just don’t put your head under !?!), we managed to relax and soak the sore hiking muscles, before setting off on the long journey back.
Steph Davis
Steph KAVU
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Ian Mitchard
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