Trip report 12-10-13

When I drove past the Bowen ranch parking area there were no cars parked there. When I got to the Freedom trail head there were no cars there either. The Sun was warming the earth as quick as possible at 10 am when I got there. Birds were singing their song and fluttering about. There was only one cloud hovering over the Lake Arrowhead area.
I had a nice reunion with the 4 hot spring regulars when I got to the springs. No one else was around. One couple was returning to Lake Arrowhead and the other couple was hiking toward the Indian camp area. When they left I had the hot springs all to myself for over 2 hours. It is that time of year again when the sun does not shine on the pool areas at all.

At 1 pm I took my thermometer out to see what the temps were.

The outside air temp on the beach area with the sun shining was 62 degrees.

The creek temp at the spot just up stream from the Arizona pool was 42 degrees. The creek has gone up over one foot from before the rains of last week.

The Arizona pool was 106 degrees. It was less than 1 foot deep. So, later I dug it out to almost 2 feet deep.

The Anniversary pool was at 104 degrees. Very nice and very clean.

The Womb pool was 99 degrees. I looked at the bottom of this pool and found a good pair of sun glasses.

The Serenity pool was at 102 degrees. Very nice and very clean.

The Crab Cooker pool was at 112 degrees again. Some one has blocked the water leaving there and made it deeper. Very clean and very nice

The Contemplation pool was 80 degrees. The leaves fell off the trees and are in this pool now. I got the leaves off the surface and could see there are many more below. So I took the temp and left.

All temps are taken at the surface and near the center of these pools.

After this a group of @ 20 students came from the Bradford ridge trail. They were very nice and most were first timers. When they left they took a large bag of trash out to so I thanked them for being good stewards. They replyed "but of course." They also reported that snow was around at the Bradford ridge trail head. "But not too bad" they said.
So it was nice to see the springs so clean and nice and better than when I got there.
Happy Soaking every one !