Avisto, Sean 2005 Journal Cottonwood Creek, Golden Front Wilderness, Inyo Co., CA July 1 I drove to the Cottonwood Creek trailhead and hiked up the canyon straight ahead from the parking lot, an unnamed tributary of Cottonwood Creek. This is one of 3 parts of Perham Alinkani's Site #60 where he found Hydromantes. The canyon bottom was heavily vegetated, so I walked up the south side instead. Dirt was loose dirt and talus with lots of pinner pine, oak and mountain mahogany and was very difficult hiking. It took me 3 hours to reach a large waterfall where Perham found salamanders. There was a large spray zone with rocks and a dripping wall of moss and rock on the left side, but I didn't find any salamanders there. I climbed up the rock wall on the south side of the falls and found a juvenile H. platycephalus under a rock in a crevice (SMK 34 - 36.43970 N, 118.10876 W [WGS84, 18 macc.], 1982m elev). I deployed data logger #873951 just to the south of the spray zone above the mossy wall, at 12:50PM (36.43958 N, 118.10825 W [WGS84, 21macc.], 1978m elev). I wanted to explore above the falls but was afraid the salamander would get too hot (it was 32C in the shade at the trailhead) so I hiked out along the north side of the canyon. The hike was still hard but not as bad as on the south side. I found the salamander at 12:30PM.