Deadwood Hot Springs

The snow will be coming to the back country soon, so venturing as much as possible now is a must. Saturday's trip was a sort of a birthday present to my mom and a chance for me to go see some new country. I had hoped that my sister and brother-in-law could go too, but they were too busy with their new jobs. Also, Kyley was still in Chicago so... anyways. On the way there, I decided to check out the Bear Valley road route, which takes off from highway 21 closer to Stanley than Lohman. On the way there, we got an incredible shot of the Sawtooth mountain range

Once we started the hike, I got the GPS up and running, but when we got to where I thought the coordinances were for the hot spring, there were no hot springs! Nor was there anywhere around that looked like there could be hot springs.

On the hike in:

We just kept on going up Warm Springs and I hoped that we'd come across some warm water. Sure enough, another mile up the trail, we found hot water, but it disappeared into the hillside with no pools anywhere in sight. To find them, I went running all over up the hill, but to no avail. There were elk trails and even a previously cut out trail, but they led to places that I wasn't going. On the way back down the hill, I decided to trek further up the creek and vuala, there was steam all over the place which led directly to the hot springs.

Instead of you getting to see me running all over the hillside to find it, I just erased the trip in and GPS'ed the way out instead. The little red flag is where I thought the hot springs would be, but that was closer to where we had to take off from the main trail onto an older, lesser used trail that continued up warm springs. Total hike, one way, would be a little over three miles as long as you don't tack on a hike all over the hillside.

There were 3 main pools, one natural cave pool and two built up pools that were much larger. We showed up too late to fill up the larger pool, but the smaller of the two built up pools was already full and ready for use. Upon hopping in, the temp was perfect at around 100 degrees.

I gotta ask, is that litte extra section on the right detention for those who get too drunk?

We didn't get much time to sit, around 45 minutes or so and we had to get going to beat sun down. On the way out, I wanted to check out the Scott Mountain road. It was pitch black out with no moon, but I could tell that the area was a must see. On the other hand, the road was pretty bad. Don't take your two wheel drive on it unless you want to drive 5 mph or less most of the way and say sayonara to your shocks. Luckily I drive a car designed for rally racing (Outback Sport). Mine's not suped up at all though, in fact, it's the 1.8 liter rather than the 2.2. Someday I've got to see that road in the daylight!

On the agenda for this coming weekend: A trip to the Trinity Lakes, Oktoberfest at Eric's and then a visit to the Kuna Caves and maybe Givens hot springs.

It's good to have nice weather in the offseason!!!

Over 'n Out for now-

Mr. Whisky (more phonetics)

BTW, I added pics to the Bogus blog finally