San Antonio Hot Springs

Ahhhhhhh

        “The way is shut.” The stuffy lady in a park ranger’s uniform stood in the middle of the road and quoted Gandalf at us. I put the truck in park and got out to reason with her. It was the day after Christmas 2018 and the federal government was shut down. Over a foot of snow had fallen in the last couple hours on the mountains outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico and none of the roads had been plowed. This lady clearly did not want to be outside, but someone had buried their SUV in a snowbank and she had been called out to help clean it up. 

This was the only road going where we wanted to go; which was the middle of nowhere. Sam and I had had enough of traffic and people and our wasteful consumerist society and were headed out into the mountains to camp for a couple days. But the Park Ranger was adamant that no one was going any further. She didn’t want to “come clean up our mess,” which she had clearly been doing all day with unprepared tourists. She was worried we would get stuck and freeze to death or whatever. Except this lady hadn’t seen anyone like us.

I explained to her that we were geared up for winter camping. I pointed at the Montana license plates and the very capable Toyota pickup. I showed her that we had every tool remotely necessary to get us unstuck no matter where we were from shovels to a come-along winch. She didn’t give an ounce of, well anything about how prepared we were. She put her foot down, literally, and sank up to her knee. Then she stomped back to her warm SUV to wait us out. Our vehicles faced each other like great beasts in a stalemate. Sam and I frolicked in the snow, built a snowman, had a snowball fight and cooked lunch on the tailgate. Eventually, the tow truck came around the distant bend hauling a Suburban with Florida plates and a dazed looking Japanese family in tow. The park ranger moved her roadblock to let them out and I took advantage. Sam waved cheerfully as we sent up a rooster tail and gunned it into the snowstorm. It remains the only time in my life that I have ever fled from law enforcement and it was obvious that the park ranger didn’t have the motivation to chase us. She certainly wouldn’t have come to pull us out if we had gotten stuck, which we didn’t. 

Off we went into a winter wonderland. Sam’s Tacoma ate up the fresh snow like a beast, never once losing traction in the waist high drifts as we meandered further and further into the mountains. With each turn, guided by the paper atlas, the road narrowed until finally we came to a locked gate. I nestled the truck beneath a tree and we set up camp. Then, we set off for the red X that I had scribbled on page 63, San Antonio Hot Springs.

Surrounded by high crags and ghostly pine forest, the hot springs cascaded from the hillside about 400 feet above the valley floor. Pools had been stacked from nearby rock slides, creating a meandering stack of hot water surrounded by endless snow. We scrambled up to the highest pool where a 1960’s metal pipe shot the scalding water out of the mountain side. Steam blurred the entire world as we plunged into the water. 

I don’t know what it is about hot water that makes the human body so joyful, but there must be some biological reaction to hot water. Every time, whether it is a hot spring, a hot tub or just a hot shower, I feel a sense of calm, relaxation and overwhelming happiness. I feel more relaxed in a tub of water than I do in a cozy bed, or in a lover’s hug or in a comfy chair. And I hate being wet and generally dislike swimming, so there must be something about hot water that just presses all the right buttons. San Antonio Hot Springs in the winter was perfect. 

        Photos never did San Antonio Hot Springs justice. And the Texans that showed up the following day certainly were not my favorite people in the whole world. But the memory of floating in that hot pool for five hours sticks in my mind as one of the most relaxing afternoons of my life. That and the memory of waving at the scowling ranger as we blew by in the snow. Ahhhhhh.....

Camp!