Liard Hot Springs

Liard (rhymes with "weird") River Hot Springs Provincial Park was quite wonderful. The public campgrounds in Canada are all so nice and well-maintained. This one was quite full and we were lucky to find a campsite, but we found a nice private site with trees all around. This area is very lush with vegetation. After driving all day, Devin is usually pretty tired, but I wanted to take a look around, so I took a radio and walked over to check out the hot springs. They were much farther in than I expected - maybe almost a mile into the forest on a boardwalk path. It first crosses a large fen, then enters the forest. I felt a bit like Dorothy on the yellow brick road - expecting to encounter the tin woodsman around any corner!

When I finally got to the lower pool, I was surprised to find several people there since I hadn't seen anyone on the way in. I foolishly did not wear or bring my swimsuit, since this was supposed to be just a short scouting mission! So I continued a bit further, checking out the "Hanging Gardens" before it started to rain in earnest.

The "Hanging Gardens" were dry, but the gardens along the boardwalk all the way to the end were lovely - I noticed 2 kinds of orchids (the white Ladies Tresses, and the green Rein Orchid), white Anemones, yellow bush Potentilla, wild Rose, Baneberry, False Solomon's Seal, wild Raspberry, Horsetail, Rushes, yellow Monkeyflowers, Fireweed, and some blue flowers - I thought they were a kind of flax, but I think they were something else, and more I can't remember.

I decided to head back as it was starting to rain harder, but in the shade of the large trees I was staying dry... along with several dozen mosquitoes who had the same idea, apparently! After a while, getting wet didn't seem like such a bad idea, as it wasn't all that cold, so I started down. I stopped at the lower pool and sheltered in the dressing room, but started feeling sort of creepy being in there with no good reason. I sure wished I had a swim-suit, since the pool looked so inviting and steamy in the rain. It was definitely not a "swimsuit optional" vibe, though, so I walked back in the rain.

When I got back I was able to take a hot shower in the RV and crawl into bed all warm and toasty.

The next morning we discovered that the towel over the Jeep window may not have been a great idea. Since I had attached it by hanging the ends inside the removable "Freedom Hard Top" (front of the roof), and since it had rained on it, it was all wet and had wicked water into the Jeep - it was humid and a bit mildewy smelling in there - ewwww. So we left the windows down and put the towel on the roof to dry and decided we'd just risk rocks hitting the windshield.

We decided to stay another night here so Devin and I could go back up to the hot springs and soak. Devin took his Segway, which was great on the boardwalk. We walked all the way to the upper springs, but the Alpha (lower) pool is much nicer than the Beta (upper) pool. Though beautiful, the upper pool is 3 meters deep (over 9 feet) and mucky on the bottom. It's like very warm bathwater - you can swim in it. But there are no benches, just stairs going in, so it just wasn't as inviting for us. Both are natural, minimally developed (not cement pools, just added decks and benches). The lower pool had a nice gravel bottom, a waterfall between pools that you can sit under while it massages your shoulders and back with warm water, underwater benches out in the middle and at the edges, a deck with stairs into the pool at various points, changing rooms, benches, and composting toilets set away from the water. What a beautiful setting!

After a nice long soak, we had a pleasant walk back as it started to rain lightly again. We saw a moose cow and calf in the fen area on the way back! A perfect ending to another wonderful day.

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