Last week, I took delivery of my newest toy. It is a 2002 Suzuki VStrom (DL1000). My Dad sold it to me after upgrading to a 2003 FJR1300.
Late Sunday afternoon, Tamara and I decided to head up to the Jemez to check out some of the natural springs. The route was a pretty simple 125 miles and about 3 hours of driving time through the beautiful Southern section of the Jemez National Forest.
NM-4 is the road that winds up through the Jemez. It starts out as wide sweepers through the Jemez Pueblo. The first stop was just north of the Pueblo at a neat picnic area with these gigantic red rock formations.
After filling up with water, we pressed on North towards Soda Dam. This dam was created from the minerals in a natural spring located beneath the Jemez River. There is an in-depth description of Soda Dam at the USDA Forest Service website.
A unique feature of the road here is a very dangerous cattle guard. The guard is in the apex of a semi-blind, wide sweeper that leads you past the dam. There are no signs warning of the guard either. From both the north/south-bound directions, the guard will sneak up on you. Be careful when leaning through this turn. Soda Dam acts as a great landmark to remind you to slow down! Click on the photo below to see the cattle guard at full resolution. It is directly beside the boy and father silhouette holding hands on the right-hand shoulder.
We got to Battleship Rock around 6pm and made a 2.5 mile to the McCauley Warm Springs. The hike was moderate to strenuous since we ended up on the wrong trail that cut straight up the mountain instead of switching back and forth. I think it had to have been a trail cut by firefighters from past wildfires. It eventually ran into the correct trail though!
The entire area was covered in pines and large black boulders that must be remnants of the volcano explosion at the Valles Caldera just north of here. The trail was beautiful and smelled of pine most of the time. There was a lot of fire damage, too. Logs that were burned and trees that were badly damaged. There were a lot of young plants sprouting up from the ground. Trees, grasses, an interesting lace type of plant, and others were flourishing.
The springs were atop a relatively flat spot of the mountain we were climbing. There was a large pool at the top that flowed down into another large pool that appeared to be cleaner and used for bathing. The upper pool was covered in algae, and we decided that it must not be for bathing… The water was crystal clear and there were tiny fish (less than half an inch long) that nibbled on us while we swam.
This pool was artificially dammed to get the pool to its large size (as seen on the top right of the photo above). The water was almost luke-warm. The spring feeding it must not be getting the same heat as other hot springs in the area that are supposed to be 100°F+. The creek continued downhill to the Southeast and eventually led into the Jemez River.
We left the warm springs around 7:30 or so and hiked through the sunset and into late dusk. We ended up taking the correct trail that we should have taken on the way up and it was much easier to hike. However, it did scare us a bit as we were approaching dark on an unknown trail. It appeared to be heading the correct direction, and I could hear the river which would’ve led us to the parking lot. We arrived at the bike just in time to be the absolute last guest to leave (the last car was pulling away as we got to the parking lot). We got to see the moonrise over Battleship Rock though!
