Scenic Hot Springs Conditions, April 5th, 2007

Conditions: Clear, sunny skies, 50F @ Pools; 68F on the Upper BPA Road. Snow is still 2-4 ft deep, wet & heavy. Melt is accelerating. Snowshoes are not required as snow will support boots. Some icy areas under shade. Spring Source East #1 (Lobster Upper): 96.1F, Flow: 15.35 gpm (measured) East #2 (Lobster Lower): 68.8F, disconnected from feed tube Feed was back in place supplying the pool.

Olympic Hot Springs Update - Mar 31st, 2007

The road up to Olympic Hot Springs remains closed at the dam due to winter storms. That leaves a hike of around 14 miles round trip.There are a large number of downed trees across the trail, all navigatable. There is one large one right before the last (highest) springs that is difficult to get over. The stream crossing is navigatable but don't expect to keep your feet dry. There are still

Scenic Hot Springs Conditions, March 26th, 2007

In a nutshell, the snow is melting but there is still plenty of it. FS850 is undriveble with unstable snowpack from three to six feet. Erosion on the slopes is typical for the spring melt, with a few new wrinkles but no major sliding. Snowshoes are still advised but they will go on and off, as there are plenty of bare patches. The air temperature at the pool was a cool 39F when I arrived at

Scenic Hot Springs Snow Conditions Update

I must apologize to my lack of posts regarding Scenic. It's not that Scenic has been forgotten, but more of that there is little of a public nature that can be posted and a certain desire on the part of Mother Nature to make it difficult at best to visit Scenic. Weather in the Cascades has been pretty brutal these last several months. In a nutshell . . . there is still lots of snow up at

Showshoeing to the Springs

Kimba was kind enough to share these images of Scenic taken Dec 26th, 2006Someone built a snowman at the gateThere were tracks that went about up to the first bend right,but then they ended. There were no tracks above that at all.It took almost three hours to hit the springs.The pools were dirty, they emptied it as muchas they could and gave it a good cleaning.

Insanity at Bagby: Getting trapped in a winter storm

An enlightening recap of one couple's visit to Bagby Hot Springs only to be caught under the full brunt of the winter wind storm that hit the Cascades on Dec 12-13th, 2006. Bagby is a very popular natural hot spring in the National Forest east of, and reasonable close to Portland, Oregon. The original discussion thread was posted in the Soak.net forums.After some light snowshoeing near government

A Comment on a Comment on a post (good this time)

Ron at the Hot Springs Association made such a good and valuable comment that I felt it deserved to be prominently displayed as a main article . . . so here it is:Hey,Well said Rick!The secret to using closed hot springs - Never ask to soak when you know the public is not invited to do the same.-Never expect to soak and leave without asking.-Volunteer repeatedly for all cleanups, work parties,