Verde Hot Springs

On an extended Thanksgiving road trip through Arizona, my partner and I stopped at Camp Verde and camped at the abandoned hamlet of Childs. We arrived on Black Friday right at sunset and wanted to check out the Verde Hot Springs at night. We made camp and started the walk along the abandoned town, really great, bright moonlight with the near full waning moon. As we were heading there a couple was heading out. We overshot the river crossing and I tried to cross at a fairly scary fast moving rapids area and couldn't find the trail. We got back on track and crossed the river which was waist high, walked by two palm trees and down the steps to the hot springs.

Nobody there! The outer pool was too cool for the air temp(mid 40's) so we mostly went in the roofless indoor pool. The water had a slightly metallic odor, but the pools were pretty algae free. The mural art isn't really for me so it was nice that I couldn't see it too well because of the darkness. The cave had some pretty gross bubble scum going on so we didn't take a dip in that one. Probably spent 2 hours there, a really fun post apocalyptic vibe for a moonlight soak. As we were hiking out, another couple was hiking in, so everybody got the place to themselves that night. Hard to photograph at night because of the cold air and steam, this is the only one that came out, from the outer pool.