Late checkout, hotel breakfast, watched the weather channel to find out about our desert bound prospects & leisurely bathed & fed the babe.
News of the heatwave hitting the pacific northwest was all over the news, record temps, 107, 110 & higher in areas. We’re headed for the desert & what’s the weather like out there? Sunny & in the high 80’s, early 90’s, a nice breeze.
We’re rolling along the unimproved road stretching along the Steens Mountains right now & the lush green “desert” is before us, little puffy white clouds in the clear blue sky, and a cool breeze at our backs.
The irony.
Everyone back home is saying you’re headed for the desert in a heat wave? & we’re here in the desert in the coolest part of the state right now!
We spoke with my mom & she says not to come to Medford until Friday when it will cool down to 99…It’s 107 there today. They don’t have air conditioning either, so I think we’ll hang out here in the cool desert for a few days….our timing & luck….impeccable.
Once in the Alvord, we took a side road around into the Mickey Basin & the Mickey Hot Springs.
We didn’t know what kind of Hot Springs to expect, but we saw it on the map & we had plenty of gas & the kid was still sleeping, so what the heck?
After some trick road turn offs tried to lure us off the trail, we navigated the signless desert myriad of roads accurately & reached the Mickey Hot Springs. It was well signed & said “EXTREMELY HOT WATER ~ Sensitive Geological Area ~ Areas of ground where you may break through ~ keep pets on leash”. Yikes. We weren’t really looking to burn our legs off, but lets check it out anyway.
We got packed up to go adventuring & geared Stella up in her full body white desert garb. I had nursed her in the car while Topher scouted out the springs.
Topher carried her in cradled in his arm & within minutes she was passed out again. Cute. We came upon a large deep spring with crazy orange algae growing all around it. It was super deep & looked very hot. Testing it with your toe proved that theory. It looked like there might be a place where people had gotten in, but I don’t know how. You’d be boiled alive in that thing, not to mention how would you get out?
There was a littler tub up the stream that had a ledge where people obviously had sat. I put my toe in & was like, NO WAY! Topher got in, & sat on the ledge, I don’t know how.
As far as I could go was up to my knees. It was so hot that if you moved very much at all the water that had cooled down around your skin would move away & the scalding water around it would start burning you again. Not so fun. Topher seemed to like it though….crazy! After giving up on the idea that we’d be enjoying a soak, we hiked around this geological oddity & found some crazy natural features rivaling those in Yellowstone.
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