Gim soaks in the tub at Pott’s Ranch Hot Springs. Photo by Joyce Hollister.I settled gingerly into the steaming tub—a round galvanized iron livestock watering trough—in hopes that I wouldn’t burn myself. “That’s why they call them hot springs,” my husband said. “Ha, ha,” I replied.
Someone had placed the trough next to a grimy old white porcelain bathtub, which had obviously been used for years and was now thankfully retired. You change into your bathing suit—if you brought one—and leave your clothes on a wooden bench. When we arrived at Potts Ranch Hot Springs, it took me about half a second to realize that the twisted washcloth sitting on the bench was the hot tub’s stopper. I pushed the cloth into a small hole in the tub and Gim pulled over three plastic pipes, somehow connected to the springs, and filled the tub to chest height.
It was about 10 in the morning. The August sun shone overheard. We leaned back in the water with a sigh. Ahhhh.
It’s not as if we were especially dirty and needed a bath. We’d only spent one night camping out. Yet, there’s something appealing about sitting in a natural hot spring in the middle of Monitor Valley, a wide sweep of sagebrush between the Alta Toquima and the Monitor ranges south of U.S. 50. Where else could you soak sublimely alone, yet see for miles?
Joyce takes the Pine Creek Trail that begins at the U.S. Forest Service campground. Photo by Gim Hollister.We had spent the night in Pine Creek Campground, a primitive facility maintained by the U.S. Forest Service with standing grills, fire rings, tables and pit toilets (one is handicapped accessible), but bring your own drinking water. It was late afternoon when we arrived at our campsite. Before dinner we hiked about a mile and a half along Pine Creek on a trail heading west. Red cliffs stood on both sides of the canyon. A couple of times we forded the stream on downed trees. Although the trail is steep in places, it is fairly easy. We collected plenty of deadwood, such as birch and pinion pine, for a campfire.
It was midweek, and only two other campsites were occupied, one by a group of serious hunters (it was bow season). They had an intricate setup of lights and generators, which they were running in the afternoon. They thoughtfully turned the generators off in the evening, and left quietly very early the next morning on their hunt. We practically didn’t know they were there.
Gim makes breakfast on the standing grill at the Pine Creek Campground. Photo by Joyce Hollister.Fantastic bugs darted around the lantern as we ate dinner—fried spam and a salad we’d picked up at Scolari’s in Tonopah. We unrolled our sleeping bags beneath aspens and golden barked birch trees about 15 feet from the creek and wondered whether the rushing water would keep us from falling asleep. It didn’t. In the middle of the night, I did wake up to watch leaves tremble in the slight breeze. The moonlight flickered like an old movie.
Clouds reflect in the hot spring of Diana’s Punch Bowl. Photo by Joyce Hollister.Earlier, we visited Diana’s Punch Bowl, a geothermal spring in the middle of Monitor Valley, which would have been too hot to soak in. From the road you see a largish white cone that stands above the plain. You walk to the top and peer down into a crater that holds a circle of scalding blue water. The height of the formation gives you a breathtaking, 360-degree view of the valley and the north-south running mountains.
Gim looks down at the hot water inside Diana’s Punch Bowl. Photo by Joyce Hollister.After soaking at Potts Ranch, we drove up Sam’s Canyon Road west to Toquima Caves Campground near the top of Petes Summit. A short hike led us to where ancient peoples painted red, white, black and yellow pictographs on the cave walls. No one has a clue to the meaning of the circles, tally marks, dots and squiggles. A chain-link fence keeps you out of the cave, but you can clearly see most of the pictographs. The colors look as if they were painted yesterday.
Red, yellow and white pictographs burst with intense color at Toquima Cave. Photo by Joyce Hollister.We retraced our route to Monitor Valley. From that direction we could see the shape of the Monitor, the mountain that looks like the Civil War ironclad battleship USS Monitor and gives the valley its name. A few miles south we turned west on the Northumberland Mine Road and at the summit, passed the purple-, ivory- and reddish-gold stripes of the open-pit Northumberland Mine.
Descending the west side of Alta Toquima Range into Big Smoky Valley, we were intrigued by how the jagged canyon walls gleamed a golden red, similar to rock formations in Utah and Arizona. On an earlier trip here, Gim had seen two dozen bighorn sheep, a band of wild horses and a group of antelope, all within half an hour. I strained my eyes but saw no evidence of wildlife save a small pile of horse droppings.
We returned to our Genoa home on The Loneliest Road in America traversing Carroll Summit on old U.S. 50 from Austin to Middlegate before cranking up the Toyota to the legal limit, well satisfied with our short but lively Central Nevada exploration.
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