I did a solo hike to DCHS yesterday, heading down the Bowen Ranch Trail around 12PM in cold temps and lots of sunshine. While hiking in I saw a motorcycle rider coming down the Bowen Ranch Trail who came to the big heavy metal USFS sign then he turned around. Lots of illegal ORV trails all over those hills. When I got to DCHS there were only a handful of people. some in the Aniversary Pool, and a couple in the Serenity Pool. The Womb had no people and I got into that pool since its my favorite at DCHS :-) Most of the day I was the only one in the Womb. The temp of the pool was around 98, and the air temperature at the edge of the pool at 3PM was 36 degrees. Met a teacher and his friend from Hesperia, and after soaking at DCHS they were headed for a 3 week trip back to the east coast of the US, leaving from Victorville on the train, thier mode of transportation for their whole trip :-) Another DCHS regular showed up around 3:30 PM and began soaking in the Serenity Pool. We chatted for a good while. His name was William, and he told me a story about one of his trips to DCHS with his girlfriend this last summer. They had left thier belongings across the creek from the hotpools at the beach. It was dark and when they finished soaking they crossed the creek to get dressed and found a group of people riffling through their stuff. A fight ensued and William got his tooth chipped. They hiked out and contacted the authorities who then picked up the thieving offenders on Ocotillo as they were leaving. They were charged and ended up paying also for the repair of Williams tooth. Moral of that story is to keep your belongings in view when spending time at DCHS if you want to make sure someone doesn't run off with it. William also told me that the last time he soaked at DCHS, about a couple of weeks ago, he ended up getting all itchy when he returned home. The sypmtoms he described were the same as what was happening to various people some years ago at DCHS, that being when people soaked for fairly long periods in the pools, some people ended up getting itchy bumps later on. The sypmtoms are benign and go away within a day or two. Back then we discussed in length at the DCHS Forum what might be the cause of this, with a number of theories suggested. Anyway I soaked all day yesterday and when William told me about his experience, I figured that I was most likely in for some itching too when I go home, since I soaked all day in the Womb. I had got the itchy syptoms before when it was occuring to others. Last night the itchiness kept me up for about 4 hours, and it finally started letting up around 4 this morning. Some people appear to be immune to the problem. Looks like I'll have to cut down on my soak time in the pool :-( Anyway it was a wonderful day, very mellow and peaceful. William also experessed that he was also concerned about the various problems, and changes in the makeup of visitors to DCHS in the last couple of years, especially this year, similiar to what was expressed recently by Naked Man. I have heard this same point of view from a number of regulars. DCHS is still such a magical place, and hopefully all who care for the place can keep things from getting to far out of hand down there. The cooler months and weekdays are the best bet for those seeking more mellow times at DCHS. When its warmer you can always head upstream or dowstream and find a peaceful area to spend time when things get hectic and noisy at the springs. When I got back to my truck after hiking out I was under an intensly bright winter's moon, just amazing how bright it was! I posted some new pictures at the Wizard's pictures link below, starting with a picture of Golden colored algae at DCHS, pic 7 on page 42, and on though the five photos on page 43. One image amazingly enough shows my feet, underwater, a photo just too stupendous to miss :-)
