Re: warm spring

The culture of Deep Creek Hot Springs has for over a half century been a place where visitors may swim and soak wearing whatever they like, including the suit they were born in.

I first hiked the goat trail in from the Bowen Ranch in 1970 and the culture I found that day was largely the one that survived almost to the present day. It was a culture that respected humans, clothed or not, respected the environment, "Mother Earth" we said then, and each trip to DCHS was a day off in paradise, a place so unlike the sprawling, smoky cities we lived in.

Now the sacred Deep Creek Hot Springs environment is under attack. Where trash was largely packed out, now people drop it where they used it knowing that someone just might gather it for them, or not (who cares?). Graffiti stained the beautiful granite cliffs in 2007 upstream of the springs and we devotees of the place cringe at finding more evil taggings on our beloved granite. What was once a naturist shrine now finds littering, textile-clad folks desecrating our own version of the "Woodstock Nation." Humbug!

CalBoy, as we get to know you we may let you in on some of the culture and places we’ve learned about over much of that half century. Have patience, grasshopper. ;-)