Re: Planning a solo trip to Sespe in two weeks

I’m new to solo camping and paranoid about mountain lions and coyotes. I’ve been talking to the ojai rangers and they said because the river is so high nobody has been able to get to sespe hot springs from piedra blanca. So I would be totally alone for the whole trip. I think its more for my own piece of mind than safety, i’ve never been alone camping for more than a night,(this will be 3).

I did a test run of the biking portion yesterday and it was certainly a rough go of it. I rented this fat tire mountain bike and I had a 70l backpacking pack on. I biked grade valley road to the johnston ridge trail head nearly 12 miles one way with elevation loss of 1500 and gain of 1000. Took 3 hours each way, luckily plenty of water up there right now so I don’t need to carry as much weight. Wondering though if this is not such a good idea?