No trip south without this favourite: Arizona hot springs

It's noon, and I'm trying to concentrate here in my motel room at "The New Pioneer", a casino-cum-motel in Laughlin, NV, where we are staying for a couple of nights before moving on to Yuma (not to gamble, just because it's a handy place to stay). Concentration is difficult, however, not because of any human activity but because of a very vocal great tailed grackle right outside my door who is using the whole big spectrum of its language to entertain me, at the top of its voice to boot. 

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 Afraid that on a weekend in March – spring break time in much of the US—the Arizona hot springs would be inundated with visitors, we had delayed our hike deliberately to Sunday afternoon. Although we didn't stay in Boulder City as we had done on previous visits we still needed to check if the bighorn sheep were around. Boulder City has a resident herd which has increased steadily so that the population is healthy now and even has it made possible to establish sheep in other parts of the state. We didn't hold high hopes: every other time so far we had looked in vain. On our first visit to Boulder City someone told us about Hemenway Park on the outskirts of town as the most likely place to see them, so that's where we were headed. We didn't quite remember where to turn off the highway, however, and ended up a street or two too early: no park, only a beautiful residential area, so we turned around and drove back down the hill. Lo and behold, though, in the grassed draw between the houses and the highway there was a beautiful ram, horns curved almost all the way around.

Johann stopped the car and I got out to take photos, not totally successful because he was a bit far away for my small camera. As I turned around, however, three more sheep strolled leisurely down the middle of the road in the turning lane, on their way to the same grassy draw. After so many years we finally had found them! And this was not the end of it either: on the way down the hill towards the Lake Mead visitor centre we did pass the turnoff to Hemenway Park, and here a whole herd was grazing peacefully. By then we were eager to get to the trailhead for our hike, however, and decided to come back the next day. So what might have been the reason for the abundance of sheep down in this area now when we hadn't seen any in the other years? Then, we were told that the best sightings were in the summer when food up in the mountains got sparse. Was it drier this year than it had been?

When we arrived at the parking lot for the trailhead at the Mile 4 marker we were appalled: not only was the parking lot itself full but cars were parked along the road before and behind the parking lot. If all these people were down at the hot springs there would be standing room only. Had we made a mistake? Would one of our favourite places be spoiled for us now?

It was about three in the afternoon, and we had yet to pack our backpacks, so it would be a while until we were ready to start on our hike. We were hopeful that people would soon start flocking back after a day at the springs. We were not mistaken: group after group came wandering back up the draw, tired and hot and slow some, others still with a spring in their step. A few – not many - hikers were still leaving to go down, too, among them a family of six, the kids ranging in age between maybe five and ten, the dad, a very fit looking black man, pulling a four-wheeled cart with a cooler. Were they thinking of going down and back again this late in the day? They certainly didn't have any camping equipment with them. We wondered how this was going to turn out.

When we finally left with our backpacks around four the sun was slowly getting lower. We still met a lot of people on their way out on our hike, climbing – some obviously struggling - the steep part we descended carefully. When we entered the canyon at the bottom much of it was in the shade already. We still were a bit anxious: would we find our tenting spot occupied this time? That would be a sad thing indeed.

We needn't have worried, however: we obviously were the only ones crazy enough to do this hike with a big backpack, at least on this day. We pitched our tent and walked down the rest of the way to the hot springs, only a couple of hundred metres more, to check out the situation there. The first people we saw were the family that had left shortly before us, having a bite to eat before heading up to the parking lot again. We were in awe: not only had the dad pulled that cart down the steep, rocky decline and was going to do the same thing in reverse, but the kids all seemed happy and content and not at all balking at the thought of having to hike all the way up when it was likely going to be dark before they were done.

The pools weren't exactly empty, but it was not as bad as we had feared, and with the evening progressing there was a good chance that it would get even quieter. We went back to the tent and had a bowl of soup—our trusty 'pocket rocket' was with us, of course, since there is no wood to make a fire—and returned to the pool when the sun had disappeared behind the mountains. Now, only a handful of people were left, and most of those, too, didn't stay long anymore. We lit the teelight in its glass bowl we had brought with us, enjoyed our red wine and watched the stars appear in the narrow space above. Slowly the Seven Sisters moved to the right, and the moon, a bit over half full, cast its silvery light on the water. It's hard to imagine a more perfect ending to a day. Thoroughly heated through, any stiffness from the hike alleviated by sitting in the warm water for a couple of hours, we made our way back to the tent shortly before ten. It was still warm enough to sit outside for a while under the starry sky, much more of it visible here than in the narrow part of the canyon that encloses the pools, and listen to the rhythmic song of the insects.

I found this beautiful dead moth right above the hot springs

In the morning, we were alone in the springs for a little while before we heard a quiet splashing in the hotter pool you have to cross to get to the one we were occupying. The man who had just arrived waved a brief 'Good Morning' and stayed out of sight in the hot water. Soon the distinct smell of marihuana drifted down to us but dissipated soon. A few minutes later two men climbed up from the lower part, scout leaders from a camp down by the Colorado who wanted to enjoy the pools before the 40 or so kids in their care woke up. Next were a father and son we had seen the night before already. The son fights forest fires in the summer and enjoys rock climbing in Joshua Tree during the winter, and the dad, a former teacher, saw the attraction in the life his son leads and was now retraining to be a paramedic for the firefighters. It is not often that a father follows in the footsteps of his son instead of the other way around.

When the self-appointed caretaker of the hot springs arrived (no longer Mike whom we had met twice before) and started the cleanup we headed back up for our breakfast bowl of soup. Rearranging the sandbags people had felt impelled to move to a different position he noted drily, 'everyone likes to be an engineer here.'

By ten o'clock we had packed and were on our way. The sun was out, but in the canyon it was still cool.

 Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa) was in bloom wherever the sun could reach, humming with pollen-laden bees, and as I got close to take photos I noticed more and more small flowers in bloom, from phacelia to lupin, primrose to the first California poppies. Except for the brittlebush there were not a whole lot of them yet, so maybe we were too early, or it was drier than in previous years.

It was lovely to walk at this time of day, and while we encountered a few people heading down we were all alone for most of the hike and met nobody after we turned off the regular trail at the fork where we arrived after the descent the day before. Now, we were headed for the petroglyphs and hoped to be on the right way to take the alternate route out. Last time Mike was with us and showed us where to climb up after the two dry waterfalls. Would we find the right spot? I was a bit apprehensive since I remembered how afraid I had been last time when I was faced with that steep wall I needed to climb to get up and around the last dry waterfall. Then, it turned out to be easier than I had feared: Johann climbed up first, and Mike brought up my backpack while giving instructions where to set my feet from below. This time there was no Mike.

We found the wall, quite sure we were right because there was no way we could have scaled the dry waterfall that closed off the canyon ahead. Also, a small pile of rocks at the foot of the wall was obviously meant to make the first step up easier. I watched Johann climb up and disappear around the corner, then heard his returning footsteps when he came back to fetch my backpack so that I could climb up unimpeded. There was nothing for it: I gathered my courage and slowly placed my feet on the rocks that offered themselves as footholds and found the ones to hold on to with my hands. All was well—as long as I didn't look down, which was easy enough to avoid since I needed to concentrate on the way up. After a few minutes I was on level ground again, pleased with myself for overcoming my fear once again, actually having enjoyed it. The rest of the trail was easy, and we arrived at the parking lot around noon. Already it was starting to fill up again, so our timing was perfect.

We had been looking forward to having a meal at the 'Coffee Cup Cafe' in Boulder, a breakfast place popular with locals and tourists alike, mostly for old times' sake: we had enjoyed delicious breakfasts here when we were in Boulder City for the first time and also when we visited with our German friends a few years ago. Alas, when we got there the waiting time was half an hour, and it closed in an hour. We decided to forego it this time and stop once more at Hemenway Park for a picnic lunch instead. We also wanted to check on the bighorn sheep again, and again we spotted a large group.

Off to Laughlin, then, where we had booked a room at 'The New Pioneer', which turned out to be an excellent choice: the room is large and comfortable and surprisingly quiet. We ended the day with a walk along the river promenade that connects the hotels along the Colorado, a pleasant stroll in the still warm evening.