Bubble in the desert: Buckeye Hot Springs

After some last minute packing in my lunchbreak, Dave and Scott sent me on my way early.

It was a pretty windy drive south to Bridgeport with tumble weed blowing across the road all over the place. I wonder if this wind is anything to do with the Hurricane which made landfall in the Gulf coast about the same time I was driving. It was a long way away but weather systems are complex. As I drove I pondered the sense of camping with my new tent in such wind.

I had a handful of directsions with me but the best were from www.swimmingholes.org. The last couple of miles on a dirt road was really very easy to drive (especially after my experience of New Zealand ski roads). As I got to the top of the 'hill' I saw a couple of tents in quite a big area on my right. I wasn't sure that was it so I carried on a bit down to another bridge. This looked more wrong so I drove back and had a chat with some of the campers. Met a very nice couple who told me I was at the right spot for the springs.

So, i put my tent up and headed off down a steep bouldery hill to the creek. Walking along the creek my hopes of finding hot springs were seeming ever more unlikely until I saw a cairn (pile of stones) which seemed to suggest I was on the right course. As I got there I saw the same couple again, just finishng up in the hot springs. So, after wading across a pretty cold creek, I stripped down to my speedos and jumped in, to the sadly quite shallow but lovely and warm springs. After a few minutes of chat my new friends left and I had the springs and the creek to myself.

I've been told that at these springs clothing is "strictly optional". Quite surprising I thought for America but this is after all, well into the back country so people seem to do what they like, within reason. Anyhow, in the true spirit of the occasion I lost the speedos and floated starkers in warm springs in the middle of an otherwise cold creek (and hoped to not attract the attention of any passing bears). [the photo shown is just one borrowed from the web, I didnt take it!]

As darkness started to creep up on me I got dry, put some clothes on and squelched back along the other bank of the creek getting quite muddy. I edged across a couple of fallen trees that had been sort of made into a bridge, and then scrambled up the bouldery slope back to my campsite. I boiled some water in my new MSR Titanium pots and made a bit of pasta. By now it was pretty dark so i tidied up the campsite, washed up the pots quiet thoroughly, put my toothpaste into my bear canister with all the other 'food' and ensured there was no food and nothing else smelly in the car (bear deterent activity).

After a while in the darkness looking up through the pine trees at the stars and milky way, i decided to turn in to the 'safety' of my tent. Before going to sleep I unpacked some new gear I'd bought, a compass and a water filter. Both bought for contingency reasons but the water filter was used a lot over the weekend.

My thoughts were not far from BEARS that night and I'm not sure I slept too much. But there was some comfort from being near a car and having a couple of other tents vaguely in sight. Though the campsite was in the middle of the woods and the whole thing didn't look unlike a scene from The Blair Witch Project at times.

I awoke to an amazingly clear day and lovely views on the way to yosemite.