In the morning at Ruby Mountains, I am appointed ‘leader’ of the short hike up the mountain having told some stories of my hiking adventure in Nepal. It is not a high climb, but there is no trail after the first ten minutes so there is a lot of scrub to trample over. I try to find the simplest and, where possible, pre trodden route, but it quickly becomes clear there is a very broad range of hiking speeds in the group. I stop frequently to let others catch up, while two girls from the Czech Republic stride on upwards reaching the top first by a good five or ten minutes. After a long photo stop at the top, we go down past an old mine shaft which Christina and Neil explore rather more thoroughly than is advisable.
Near Wells, Nevada, we stop in a remote landscape to walk up a dirt track to a hot spring. Jimmy has stressed to the group that clothing is optional at the spring. Nobody in our group plans to take up the option of going without, but on our walk up the track we pass several descending pick-up trucks coming from the spring full of bearded men smiling weirdly at the women in our group. Will we be confronted by a posse of naked drunken red necks at the spring?
Thankfully, nobody else is there when we arrive. We spend a good half hour splashing around in the soothing pool, which is artificially constructed to capture the water of the hot stream. You are advised not to submerge your head in any hot spring as the bacteria in them that could cause ear infection, but I keep slipping up on my sturdy but ageing crocs, which I am wearing to cushion my feet from the rocky bed. However, I do manage to keep my cigarettes and my Mike’s Hard Lemonade, a local alcopop, elevated above the surface.
Tonight there is another all nighter on the bus.
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| National Parks Tour Route |
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| Inside the GT bus |
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| Naked Red Neck Hot Spring |
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| a snake flattened by pick up truck |
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