Trip Report, 7/17, Wednesday

Took a mid-week visit / day-trip to DCHS, hoping despite it being summer that it would be semi-quiet. Checked the weather, saw it would be 100, and checked on the Idyllwild fire and saw that the path of the smoke was supposed to miss the hot springs area.

Got out there early. There was definitely smoke in the sky as one drove east. When you made it from LA up into the high desert, you could see the smoke in the distance to the east. The forecast was right; though I felt you could smell smoke in the air near the Bowen Ranch, once you descended into the creek basin that dissipated, and the skies were blue all day. On the drive out at the end of the day, the smoke to the east had gotten closer and thicker.

Arrived at the ranch at 8:20 am or so. No one around. The road is super wash-boarded now. They are doing construction work on Ocotillo, repaving. I saw a bunch of dead car pieces along the road: partial bumpers, strewn mechanical parts. Otherwise passed no one and no critters along the road.

I didn’t have a great day at the springs. Upon arriving at parking at Bowen (see my post “Sierra’s camera” for what I saw on the way down to it), there were just two cars. But there was at least two or three bags of trash opened up and dumped on the ground and strewn everywhere. The parking lot and camping area was trashed. I got myself together for the hike down.

The first thing I saw was a huge pile of shit, right next to the trail as you leave the lot. I mean someone took a dump right on the trail. And it was relatively recent. And it was not a dog, as there was an inordinate amount of toilet paper and skid marks piled up next to it. Sorry, didn’t touch it. It was a sign for the kind of day I would have down at the springs. (See my last trip report for the sign I had that day: diametric reversal).

I passed no one and saw no one the whole hike down. Couldn’t see much happening creekside from up above. All was quiet too. When I arrived at the creek, two teenagers were there, skinnydipping, but saw no one else. I thought it was just us. They suited up when they saw me, but I stripped down and got in water and then the Womb.

I will say this right away: The Womb was lovely in the shade, and I was the only person who soaked in it all morning. Even when I wasn’t in it, it was empty. It was ALL MINE.

But I wasn’t alone with the two young guys at the springs. Soon I saw three teenagers. Like 13 years old. They were there with some older teenagers. All were camping. There were more campers in the area upstream that slowly emerged. The 13 year olds were funny in the way that young boys can be funny, they never stopped talking and gabbing, but unfortunately their favorite names to call each other as expletives were the three letter word for homosexuals that starts with an “f,” and the six letter word for counterculturals from the ‘60s that starts with “h.” I wanted to object: “HIPPIE!” They yelled at each other. “SMELLY HIPPIE!”

All day long.

The day was bad for the behavior down there just got worse and worse. From 9 am til 2 pm when some new people arrived, I counted like 3 nudes. But there were around 25 people at most points. The place was overrun with textiles. It went like this: A group of Latino guys and girls came down around 10 am screaming all the way. Hooting and yelling. There was no reason for the yelling and it didn’t end until some of them passed out later on. There were about 10 in the group. Each able-bodied guy had to lug a cooler full of the booze, mostly Tecate, and they dragged these coolers all the way from the ranch. Noise pollution was one thing, but they just drank their Tecates and threw the cans wherever for the most part. I kept collecting them from the creek. They were floating along. They were almost as bad as the floater I saw float by, a piece of shit in the river itself, later in the day. And the Crunch candy bar wrapper I saw one of the 13 year olds eat, and then leave on a rock next to the stream to blow into the water. And the plastic bag I found floating by. And the bottle of someone’s tea. Oh, and all the empty sandbags I kept pulling from the stream that the 13 year old boys were emptying. Only after they were done did I realize they spent much of the day dismantling the poolside creek pools under the Womb--they are gone--so they could make a pile of the rocks and then slam the rocks against each other. It sounded like gun shots. They called it a game of “skipping” stones. They kept throwing the rocks at each other and then into a pile. It was so much fun! I guess. Because the creekside pools are gone, just when you would want to use them in the heat. Meanwhile, overhead, a new bird, new to me at least kept flying by. It was majestic, a kind of stork or egret, large though, I’m no expert, but its beauty was breathtaking. No one down there seemed in danger of noticing.

A nude hippie woman came around a few times and picked up some of the Tecate cans. I wondered if the boys would yell ‘HIPPIE’ at her too. She had camped out there by the creek, but was at least amassing a huge trash bag to take out with her later in the day.

I reached in the sand next to me on the beach and felt a rock. I pulled it out of the sand and it looked strangely like a turd. I was a bit scared and then I realized it was a freakin Idaho potato. Seriously. The beach is full of the trash. There is a pair of jeans and a shoe. A blanket and a sleeping bag. Just one shoe though. Don’t know how someone forgets their pants unless they are suddenly super-converted from the textile to the nudist cause!

Then some more nudes showed up at least. But one couple in their 30s were of the swinger variety. Of course! Just when you thought the day couldn’t get any more ridiculous, Mr. Nude French guy starts getting a boner every 5 seconds, and then taking pictures of his girlfriend spreading her legs, and then getting another boner, and then asking her to take pictures of him with the boner. I noticed them going from spot to spot around the creek to make out and tried to ignore them. But basically I was itching to hike out. The place was just nasty yesterday. I waited for the sun to go down a little, but started out just after 5 pm.

I suited up, packed up, crossed to the Bowen Ranch side. I ate a power bar and took one last look at the creek and springs I love. The 13 year olds were sitting on the pile of rocks they had made of the creek side pools. The Latino guys were showing off for their gals and screaming louder than ever as they used a nylon thing maybe from a tent as a kind of fishing net. They kept catching fish and then flinging them up in the air, usually in the direction of their girlfriends. Great, I thought, the day ends with fish torture. Fish were flying in all directions. And then, above it all, above the fray, I suddenly noticed Mr. Frenchie and his girl in the Contemplation Pool. She was evidently riding him and bucking up and down like crazy. The Contemplation Pool: so beautiful, so calm, so full of Frenchie sex. So that’s how the day ended actually.

Passed no one on the hike out. Did pass the new graffito that reads “To Death” and has another new arrow that points toward the springs. Did pass the cardboard Tecate cases strewn on the path, oh and the coffee someone neatly laid nearby. Did pass the early morning shit, but the toilet paper was now traveling every which way, out into the desert, skid marks in all directions.

Think I will be skipping DCHS for a while. Summer time is just horrendous down there.