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The putting green was too wet to cross. This spring had poured enough water onto the playa sediment that what had looked like a putting green from above was a marsh. I stood on the edge and looked across the bog. In this precious few acres, grass overmatched creosote or sagebrush, and the local animals had noticed. The marsh was potholed with horse tracks, in which now-cooled water from the hot springs pooled. The grass was cropped short. I saw deer tracks, and not far from the spring, a live jackrabbit that fled silently at our approach. Duke had thundered after it, his pack flapping noisily against his sides, but jackrabbits are famously fleet and long legged. It was like a pack mule chasing a thoroughbred. Duke came back wagging his tail, empty-mouthed. I scratched his head. The jackrabbit probably had longer legs.
After a few tentative steps across the bog, and a flashback to my lesson at Stinking Pants Spring, I decided not to test the sodden playa dirt. Wet boots would be bad – I had to hike back to the truck tomorrow. Duke and I retraced our steps back into the familiar creosoted flats and walked upstream. Once we got above the marsh, we headed straight for the steam. We walked up a small rise covered in mineral deposits, white and glittering in the setting sun. My boots crunched through the hardened layer of minerals that covered the ground, and the sound reverberated on both sides of me – the mineral crust was so solid that when I broke through the crust in one place, the sound carried laterally and I heard the crunching noise coming not only from underfoot, but from alongside me. The first time I heard it I thought it was an approaching truck. I stopped, and the sound stopped with me, so I started again.
When we topped the mineral-encrusted rise, I saw the springs. Gorgeous. Three distinct pools shimmered in the slanting light as steam rose into the cooling air. The clouds above, reddening for evening, preened in their waters. A browned knob rose from the desert floor and sputtered mineralized water from the top. The water trickled down the knob’s sides as it cooled, depositing minerals and leaving a mound about the height of a water fountain and the shape of a bosom. Salt and dust surrounded the springs, but immediately around them, grass grew. As Duke and I wandered through the springs, twenty-five or thirty black birds fluttered noisily from the sides of a rocky ditch where they nested above the heated water. Downstream, a single coyote barked. Duke perked his ears, and I squatted in the dust to listen.
The spurting mound.
Night fell. I built a fire of creosote and made hot chocolate, even though I should have saved the water. I leaned back in my camp chair, journal in my lap, warming my right hand by the fire when it got too cold to write. The hot chocolate was warm against my throat. I finished writing and doused the fire with water from the springs, which may not have been potable but made the coals sizzle and smoke into darkness. The western horizon rolled over the moon. I unrolled my sleeping pad on the dust, then laid my sleeping bag on top of it. I flattened my camp chair and spread it next to my sleeping pad, then crawled inside the bag. Duke curled up on the flattened chair beside me, resting his head on my stomach.
I lay awake, gazing at the stars. Big Dipper, North Star, Milky Way, lots more that I couldn’t categorize. Beyond the bounds of human cognition in number, distance, size, and intensity. Duke lifted his head and listened to the coyotes yipping. The desert air was cool against my cheeks. It is wonderful to live in a world we don’t understand. Tomorrow, I would venture into it again.
Sunrise at Pinto Hot Springs the next morning.
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