Umpqua Hot Springs

A Day In Eight Parts


I.

Following the Traveling Dude's advice, we drive North out of Crater Lake and follow the road around to the West. We are in the Umpqua Forest. As we drive down the road there are waterfalls everywhere to our right and left the most amazing of which is Watson Falls, a 270 foot waterfall that we have just climbed to the bottom of. The water is crashing down on dark gray boulders in front of us spraying our faces and clothes.

Alex moves forward; I stay still having no intention of getting any wetter. I see his head pop up between boulders, getting ever closer to the bottom of the fall. A few minutes later he returns soaked from head to toe, eyes bright and beaming from ear to ear. "It was fuckin' amazing! I stood right under the waterfall on that boulder" he points to a boulder some distance away, "and I just stood there and let the water fall on me. It was awesome!" I smile at him, I've never seen him so excited about anything, something about being in running water touches the Pisces in him. Being a Cancer, I prefer to watch the water from afar.

While we're walking the mile back down the path I ask, "You wanna go to the hotsprings and set up camp? That guy said there're campsites near the hippies!"

"You and the hippies my love! Yes, let's go make camp."


II.

We turn at the sign for Tokatee Falls. We make a left at the first junction and a right at the second junction which puts us on our first dirt road of the trip. As we drive down the road we hear a gushing river to our left, the sound is immense. We see three cars parked in a small turnout someway down the road, we pass these and not too much further is a medium sized parking lot.

We leave the car in the lot, walk down 20 wooden steps and see two campsites at the bottom. There are trees everywhere and not too far in front of us the river is rollicking by. "Lets look a little further down" I say.

We go left down a little path that takes us near the river and then bends back toward the road. There, near the first turnout is a great site away from people with good flat ground for the tent and a fire pit. I move the car and we set up camp.


III.

After camp is set up we're exhaused. We've just hiked to about six waterfalls and set up camp. I set about making a brew (British Army speak for heating hot water to make a hot drink like coffee, tea or hot chocolate) of coffee. While I'm doing this, Alex rolls a joint.

"Lets go down and sit by the river" I say. We follow a little trail that runs from our camp to two trees that have fallen over the river. Alex goes first as we climb onto the biggest one. We perch on the log. From our position we can see the log that people climb over to get to the hot springs about 20 feet in front of us. The river is gushing beneath us as we drink coffee and smoke.

"It looks like a river that's swelled" says Alex.

"Why does a river swell?" I ask.

"Well it can be for many reasons; maybe a tree fell over a fork in the river and blocked it, or
maybe there was a lot of snow this winter. . ."

"I wonder what happened to it." I say as five cyclists come to the hot springs log and start to cross. "Dude! Could you imagine what would happen if one of them fell in! They'd be down the river before they even realized!"

"Well, they'd probably hit their head on that log there, and even if they miss that one they'd probably hit the one we're sitting on. But even if they missed this one they'd end up in that water deep down there and look how fast thats moving."

"I don't even know how I'd get out of that!"

The bikers make it across with little difficulty. Although the last biker almost drops her bike into the river.

"So, do you wanna go back and make dinner and then go to the hot springs?" I ask.

"Sure."

"Are you gonna get in with me?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Well, you know how I don't like getting wet."

"But you just stood under a waterfall."

"Yeah well that was running water."

"Oh, come on, get in with me!"

"We'll see"

I give him a pouty face, but he doesn't budge, "Okay, we'll see."


IV.

As we're heating up soup for dinner and frying bread a woman in a long skirt carrying a staff
walks past our camp to her car. On her way back I say "Hello" with a smile.

"Hi, isn't this place just amazing" she says back.

"It is! We're so happy we found it!"

"Where're you guys from?"

"We'll we're on a roadtrip, we started in California."

"That isn't your Big Sur car is it?"

"Yeah, that's where my parents live."

"Oh, that's an amazing place too."

"It is."

"Well, welcome. Have a great dinner." And with that she walked off into the wood.


V.

After dinner we're even more tired than when we were sitting on the log, but we muster our strength, put on bathing suits and start the one mile hike to the hot springs. It seems like the hike will never end but eventually we come over the top of a hill and see a little wooden awning. We walk to it and inside is a young naked man siting just outside of the hot spring dozing. He looks like he's in his mid 20's. He has dark hair and looks like he's been growing a beard for the past few months.

I take off my clothes but leave my bathing suit on, not comfortable with being totally naked. Alex leaves his trunks on too.

We get into the steaming water and instantly all of my muscles relax. I find a good spot to recline and look out. I hear the river far below us rumbling and a breeze rustling the trees around us. The water smells musky. I can see a huge expanse of air between me and the trees across the river on the next hill.

The naked man drifts back into consciousness and is a bit surprised to find that he had been sleeping. Drowsily he says, "Hey, hows it goin?"

"Great. . . how about you?"

"I am amazing." He looks out and is lost in the expanse and the trees. I take off my swimsuit
satisfied that people here aren't creepy.

The naked man comes out of his reverie and asks, "So what are you guys doing here?"

"We're on a roadtrip around the states and a guy at Crater Lake told us about the place" I say.

"A road trip. Nice. Where're you going next?"

"To Bend and Portland and then to Glacier National Park. We have six months to go around
the country."

"Nice."

"What about you, what're you doing here?"

He smiles and laughs "Calculus actually."

Alex and I look at each other and Alex says, "Not a bad place for it."

"No, not at all" says the naked man, "I'm a teacher down in San Diego and I'm getting ready for my class in the fall."

"And you teach calculus?!" I ask.

"Yeah. I really hated it at first when I had to teach it to myself but now I'm starting to see how beautiful it is."

I've had to teach myself something in order to teach it to students and I've seen the students understand something that began as complicated and foreign. "I bet it's great to take something so complicated and make it simple for your students" gambling that he's that kind of teacher, "I was a teacher too."

His eyes widen, "Yeah, it is."

"I found that showing them how to apply it was the best way for them to learn."

"Me too. What did you teach?"

"ESL, mostly to adults."

He laughs, "A lost of my work is ESL too. Most of my students are refugees."

"Really? And you teach them calc? That's amazing."

"I've got some really great ones. One of my students moved to the US when she was 12. She
learned English when she got here. And while she was in my class she applied to and got in to Berkeley. I know so many Americans who can't do what she did, and they start out knowing English!"

"Wow, she must have been brilliant."

"She is!"

The conversation fades away as we all look out at the trees and the sky and think of this
refugee girl who did something we could probably never do.

"So how long have you been here today?"

"Oh, all day. I started in one of the hotter springs and then came over to this one."

"There are more springs?"

"Oh yeah, just over there." He points to our left. "The top ones are the hottest and the bottom
ones are the coolest."

"Really." I turn to Alex, "Do you wanna check'em out?"

"Sure."

"Well it was great talking to you" I say..

"You too, see you guys around."


VI.

Alex and I extract ourselves from the water and wander over to the other springs. It is lovely to walk naked in the forest. There are people in many of the other springs, everyone is naked, almost everyone is talking to each other. We go into one of the lower springs that has no people in it. From the spring we can see the river running past below. We can hear the roar of it. We can see the two hills covered in trees jutting up from the river. When someone gets into a spring above us we feel warm water flowing down to our spring from theirs over the rocks. The water has flowed out over the rocks making them white with calcium, and in some places it has cut channels between the springs that are red from the iron in the water. Our spring is a little to cool so we go up to the next one to sit with an older man.

"Too cold" I say to him as we get in.

"I've been moving my way up all day. I start in that lowest one and work my way up."

It sounds like he's been coming to the springs for a while so I ask, "How often do you get up here?"

"Well, I've been coming for about 25 years. It used to be every few years but now I live in
Roseburg so I come all the time." Roseburg is a small town about 30 miles from the springs.

"Really? So have the hot springs changed much since you first started coming?"

"Oh, yeah. Well at first we only had the one under the awning there. They say a man came here in 1906 and saw the spring and it was just water comin' up out of the ground there. His wife returned in 1910 and by then someone'd dug out the first pool. Then the other ones were dug after that. That one above us was made just a year 'n a half ago. The man brought up all the stone and concrete himself." We look up at the pool above us and we can see where the calcium has covered the stones and concrete. "The pools get cooler because the water goes from the top one there and to the next and the next, going through all 8 pools."

"And the forest service just lets you build here?"

"Oh yeah. They've done some great things for us; they built that awning there and put in the
railing on the trail where it gets real bad 'n winter."

"The winter must be awesome."

"Well, I'll tell ya, you really wanna be in the springs." He gives a knowing smile. "I've been here when the snow's fallin an' you can see the river below and the trees all covered with snow. You know that river's so high because they had to divert the aqueduct into it. It hasn't been flowing that strong in 70 years."

"We were wondering about that" I say as he gazes out at the trees lost in thought.

"Well I think we're gonna move up to the new one and check it out. Sorry if I bothered you with all my questions."

"Oh no bother" he says as we're climbing up, "I like telling people about the history."

At the next spring I stop talking and just let myself sink into the hot water. All of my thoughts and worries leave my mind and I let my eyes rest on the trees. I can feel the beauty, peace and magnitude of the place in my heart, radiating out through my chest and disappearing in my limbs. Alex and I sit together for how long I don't know.

I touch him on the leg, "We could stay here another day."

He looks over hazily, "We could."


VII.

When we get out of the springs we're both relaxed and invigorated. It's getting dark and we're heading back. We come to a fork in the road. Alex goes left but I think we should go right, "I think we should go the other way."

"Ah, they both go the same direction. We'll be fine." A few minutes later we find ourselves with an uncrossable part of the river in front of us and a steep hill behind us. Not wanting to walk back up the hill we just walked down, I start up a slightly worn path that goes straight up the hill. Feet on loose soil, hands using branches to propel me up, I hear Alex behind me, "We get all clean and then you take us up the side of a mountain."

I continue to climb stopping on a little level area. "Do you think we should keep going?"

"Yeah," he says, "it should be right up there."

We climb some more and reach a part of the path with railing. I lean over the railing and catch my breath. "That was fun! I'd much rather climb that than walk up the hill we went down."

Alex smiles at me, kisses me and says, "Me too Trecle."

"It really doesn't matter that we're dirty."

"No it doesn't."


VIII.

We make it back to camp and Alex makes a fire using twigs, branches and bits of trunk that he found earlier. We sit by the fire drinking hot chocolate and talking about our awesome day.

"I think we should stay another day." I say.

"Well we don't have to be in Bend for another couple of days. Why not?"

Later we fall asleep exhausted and happy in each others arms.