Hot Springs
I wept. Upper Hot Springs is a cylinder bored straight into the rock. The left wall rises 50 feet and the right wall is 30 feet. Between them is a hole ten feet deep—maybe more early in the season. Ferns, mosses and alders contrast sharply with the horned lizards and hard, dry chaparral above. The picture is completed by a two-person sunning rock where the light shines smooth as honey. The fall is a 25-foot chute of polished granite. Jumping ledges present an irresistible temptation. They stair step up the left-hand wall in three-foot increments to a height of 15 feet. Be aware that the higher ledges lean out over a submerged shelf. Check it out before you jump.
Getting to Hot Springs Canyon requires some minor bushwhacking, route-finding skills and scrambling. The last couple of hundred yards to the hole itself is steep and brittle. The rock is extremely loose and the fall would be a long one. Nevertheless, visitorship is fairly high. Privacy is unlikely on a weekend and the approach has more poison oak than I’ve seen anywhere. Seriously, even if you tried to cultivate the plant commercially, I don’t think you could produce a more abundant crop.
Copyright Running Water Publications 1997