Deep Creek Hot springs: Naked Hippies and PCT Magic

A couple weeks ago, I was looking for a good overnight hike along the PCT and just from the luck of looking at Google Maps for long enough I discovered that if I followed the PCT for about six miles east from Apple Valley I would end up at some hot springs. Now, I had no prior knowledge of these hot springs, and in fact, I'd never been to any hot springs at all, but the idea appealed.

My friend Katie and I met up around 1pm on a Saturday and started our hike in the late afternoon. We parked my car in Hesperia at a PCT trailhead, which didn't have any specifications about how long the car could be parked or not, and also this part of the trail appealed to me because unlike so many hikes in the wilderness of California, I didn't have to get a wilderness permit before setting off. We were good to go. I carried a full 50L pack with all the gear as a shakedown for if I was going to do the full PCT. Still the pack I carried was a hand-me-down from my dad's trailblazing days in the 90s, the bag is therefore 5 pounds and a monster. My shoulders were killing me by only a mile or two in, as we wandered along a lovely creek and trail covered in sand.

At one point we had to take off our shoes and roll up our pants legs as we waded through thigh-high, frigid waters. Then, we ascended up a steep ridge way and hiked high up like goats on an arid canyon ledge with the rushing creek below up, dazzling us as it wound round, and round the mountains. The creek was speckled with giant boulders and sided by beautiful sandy shores, any bit of which would have made a fantastic solitary campsite. We hiked as the daylight faded and we kept going up and up, endlessly onward along the sheer side of this cliff, at one point we came to a rainbow bridge and we crossed over the creek to the ridgeway on the other side of the creek but carried on in our ascent.

Finally, after four hours of hiking we arrived at the Deep Creek Hot springs, which were filled with naked people, some smoking pot, some drinking beers, some just chilling, but all in the perfectly formed hot springs that were little natural pools along the banks of the creek. It is an oasis worth discovering for yourself. There was a large bank with eucalyptus trees where we set up camp and then put on our swimsuits and joined some of the people in one of the hot springs. Three of the hot springs were formed as tiers inside big, scooped out boulders, the water cascaded down into each further down tier of hot spring and then into the creek, itself. I don't think I've ever seen so many penises before in person. But we weren't comfortable enough to strip down.

Nonetheless, Katie and I did manage to make friends. There was a group of young people, about our age who seemed like a tight-knit and intelligent set with a ripe sense of humor. They all jumped from the hot, scalding hot springs into the freezing, cold creek, fully submerged themselves and then scrambled back into the hot springs. They dared us to do it too, and so we did, as a way to get in with the "cool kids", but it turned out that doing the jump was the best thing ever as it was surprisingly very refreshing. I would never have done that on my own so there is something to be said for peer pressure. This act had the desired effect as we ended up making jokes with them for ages. Sadly, they all left as the sun set but Katie and I relocated to another pool and carried on our talks with a different group. One man told us he had recently done the West Highland Way in Scotland, which was fascinating because I had always recently done that trail, these encounters always leave me thinking that maybe we really do meet everyone for a reason.

Another man said he had been coming to the hot springs every day for 20 years and that in the summer they were always left trashed by the people who don't respect nature. Sadly, the hot springs seem to now be listed on Yelp, so more people than ever before are making their way to them and leaving all kinds of junk behind. When we were there we saw empty wine bottles, old tampons, blankets and all kinds of crap that had been thrown out by awful people. The man also told us that further up the river were more hot springs that fewer people knew about and that he would often go there to really get some seclusion.

When it got too dark to see, Katie and I lit up my tent with our torches and tried to play a card game while we snacked on hummus but it quickly became too cold not to be cocooned inside our sleeping bags (North Face Cat's Meow). My tent is the best, most lightweight thing ever and this was my first camping trip with all my gear. My tent is a Big Agnes UV Flycreek, 2 person tent. It has a little portico on it for your gear and just enough room for two side-by-side sleeping matts.

I woke up a couple times in the night because it got colder and colder, and the condensation from our body heat made me worry about my phone. In the morning, around 6am we woke up and as I unzipped my tent there was literal frost all over the base and sides of the tent. It hadn't just been my imagination that it was freezing. Katie and I then did the most logical thing we could think of, we took our bottled coffees, stripped down and ran for our lives to the first hot spring to our tent. It was like a saving grace. It instantly defrosted us and we started to feel like human beings again. It was like entering a pristine outdoor spa, surrounded by the rushing freezing creek and waterfalls. Once our minds weren't numb with cold we could take in the gorgeous light coming into the canyon and the pretty bird sounds. It wasn't long before we were joined by two other campers with the same idea and we all had a good time (if not feeling slightly shy about being so naked). Around mid-morning we packed up all our gear and headed back along the ridgeway of the PCT towards my parked car in Apple Valley.

It was a magical experience that everyone in Southern California (who respects nature) should experience.