I took the trail to the Dutchman and crossed over that and then went off trail to the Allison Clay. I hiked up the AC and went over the next ridge and into the next chute to the north. I was crossing that basin planning to go over the next ridge and into the following basin to the north to look for the spring when I happened to notice some old wood with nails in it. I thought, "there must be a lot of that out here", and turned back to look at it. It was then I noticed the metal pipe line. That made no sense, since according to the maps, I needed to go one more basin to the north to find Philomena Springs. This wouldn't be the first time a map of the Peaks had errors, so I followed the pipe up hill. Eventually, it ended and I kept going. I came to a dry metal trough and was a little disappointed. I decided to look around to see if there was any water, or signs of it. I started hearing flowing water in the rocks and found an area that had been cleared out and had a large amount of cold water flowing through the bottom.

I started walking around to see if I could find some more water in other places, but never did. I wanted to take a look in the next basin to the north and see if any evidence of a pipe or water was present. I stood hundreds of feet above the basin and couldn't see anything. Wind rushing by the rocks sounded a little like water, but I probably could have spent all day there and never found anything. As it was, Philomena is really just an accessible spring because humans cleared the rock away and made it accessible. I could see hikers above me, and since I was higher than I expected to get, I headed for the summit. I thought I wasn't going to today, but it was just so nice and I was so close, it seemed wrong not to. More so given how easy it was to find the spring. I popped up on the west side of Humphrey and made summit #81, and then hung out for a while. It was not very windy, just light gusts, and pretty warm. The views were short as it is very hazy and fires are smoking out the north and east views. I can live with it.

I headed down the way I came. You need to like scree to do this, and have high comfort with talus. I spent some time relaxing at the spring and then did my best to retrace my steps to my car. I skipped the last section of trail and went down the ski run. Upper Hart Prairie is very lush this year and nice to walk through. Left before the sunset, but I bet it was great passing through the Beale Fire smoke. It is also helpful to know what sennecio looks like to make it easy to avoid.