observations from a friday

Finally able to get back to the springs, its been some weeks. It was warm - hiked from the ranch in. Great to see the area ringed by snow in all the distances. Hiking in early, I passed two hikers separately hiking out, obviously had been there at night. While it seemed that graffiti was minimal hiking down, and some old offenders erased or covered up, that turns out to be an illusion. When hiking up, on the other side of the rocks, almost the entirety of the trail has been tagged, seemingly by the same group or person, in black spray paint, really shitty shit. Also there are way too many signs of dirt bikes, ripping up the hills, and at some crossover points the trail.

When I arrived, no one in sight - it turned out there were about 4 campers down there still and a nice guy who had camped at Bowen named Joe. The creek is literally freezing. It stymied some who arrived during the day, and they turned around and left before hitting the springs. I did actually see a young woman crying - she was so terrified and would not enter the water no matter how many times her boyfriend showed her how "easy" it was to cross. After the early morning departure of the couples down there camping, it was just me and Joe - the whole springs to ourselves for quite a while on a Friday morning. The pools look great, the Womb has a lot of algae and needs a good brushing. The Contemplation pool too cool for Winter soaks looks as disused as you would imagine, with a bunch of algae and branches clogging it up. The creekside pool below Serenity made with sandbags is long overrun, swallowed up by the rising water of the creek, and a large amount of new sand pushed up against the area will make it difficult to remake the pool there again I imagine when the waters recede. Serenity, Crab Cooker both hot and blue beautiful, the Anniversary Pool too. The saplings planted near Anniversary seem not to have made it or survived, but the whole area above the pool is bursting with green, and the big tree there already back to life (the trees by the creek just starting to bud). The Phoenix Pool is also still under water, a sandbag set up trapping a small area just below the source, which is now exposed after flooding for several more feet up the old beach area than it used to be, making it harder to use as a drinking water source. The sandbag situation in this pool was "creative" one could say, with old socks, day packs and sweatshirts filled with sand and tied and used to build up the alternate defenses of the pool. About halfway through the day a bunch of guys jumped in and moved the sandbags to the perimeter of the full pool, reclaiming it as a half hot half cold pool for the warm day. It was nice and steamy that way.

The trash situation is not great and not terrible. Around the sign, the pile of items too big for modest cleaners to pack out, the pile of items abandoned by assholes, it is there - a sleeping bag, tent, some half burned things, towels pans etc. Someone hauled a BBQ down to the springs, new looking and orange, and it is on the Bowen side of the creek. There are abandoned camping equipments just upstream from the springs where the campers always congregate. I picked up some bottle caps and unfortunately some broken glass shards on the paths to the Anniversary Pool.

Finally, it was a Noodapalooza Day down there, after a slow start, many showing up after lunch, almost all nude, lots of free hikers, and with one exception amidst the NoodNess, all Doods. Lots of fun people and lots of fun, period. As I left a little early, like by 4, to hike out, nude slack lining and freezing creek falls were on order, and I had to tear myself away from the general hilarity. It was a very beautiful day.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/2017 03:08PM by neogeo.