MichelleLove this place! Big wide green valleys, majestic Rocky Mountains in the distance, lots of evergreen trees, and HOT SPRINGS!
I had a beautiful camping spot in the San Juan National Forest – free of course! It was super close to town as well which made getting around easy. I stayed for 12 nights! Just because it was so peaceful.
The San Juan River runs through town and there is a beautiful, paved walking path that follows the river for several miles. There are multiple hot springs that flow up out of the ground along the river with several made into pools for people to soak in. However, I opted to go to Pagosa’s famous Springs Resort & Spa for a day of soaking and sunbathing in their 20 hot pools of varying sizes and temperatures. Pagosa Springs is the site of the deepest natural Hot Spring Aquifer in the world. It is 1,002 feet deep. I had an incredible time at the hot pools, some of which are right next to the San Juan River. The sound of the river rushing by made the experience even better. It happened that the river was running very high due to spring snow melt, so any of the pools right next to the river were flooded out and closed.
It wasn’t a hot day, but it did warm up to 65 degrees and it was sunny! That was warm enough to lay on a chaise lounge after a bit of soaking (although in the morning I needed to wear my robe to keep from freezing). I chatted a bit with several folks but the most interesting was a couple from London, England. We talked of the similarities in weather between London and Seattle area. We talked about the effects of COVID and the major inflation that has followed. They are experiencing the same high inflation rates similar to the US. Although they did say that they could come to the states to vacation for cheaper than staying in England. They come to the US for many of their vacations because they love our National Parks (just as I do). I was surprised to hear that England does NOT have a large camping / RVing community because of the small, narrow streets that are common in the countryside.
After 6 hours of soaking, cooling, soaking, cooling, I decided I’d had enough sun for the day. What a wonderful experience! Other than the fact that I smelled like Sulphur afterward.
Downtown offered lots of restaurants and some shops too. This is a pretty small town of 2200, but they have a huge tourist presence due to the hot springs and also the nearest ski area called Wolf Creek. Wolf Creek gets the most snow of anywhere in Colorado… a mere 420” avg. I thought that was close to the avg snowfall at Mt Baker in Washington, but Mt Baker has an avg yearly snowfall of 641”. Considered to be one of the snowiest places in the world and it holds the world record for the most snowfall in one year (1998-99) at 1,041”.
Other draws to Pagosa Springs are the myriad of trails for horses, mountain biking and hiking. There are specific trails where OHV/ORVs are allowed. Taking a scenic drive up into the mountains is also a great way to spend a day. I ended up at Williams Creek Reservoir one day way up at 8,250’. The drive was really beautiful even though the trees hadn’t started leafing out yet. I could tell it would be stunning in Summer or Fall.
All good things must come to an end as they say! My time in Pagosa Springs went too fast. I’ll definitely put this one on my return list.
PS: Prior to Pagosa Springs I spent time in Santa Fe, NM. I won’t write a separate blog post for that but I will post some pictures. The one memorable thing about my time was an unprecedented wind and dust storm. There was even an emergency weather alert that came out about the dust storm taking road visibility to 0. RVs are NOT airtight! I had small drifts of red dirt everywhere inside the RV. CRAZY!
