 Stanford Redwood |
Redwood ventures to Sykes Hot Springs.
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Upon hearing of Maddie's trip to Sykes Hot Springs in the Ventana Wilderness, I envisioned dozens of steaming water bubbling from enclosed rock pools alongside a raging river. This vision firmly planted in my mind, I quickly agreed to go with Maddie and the Stanford Redwood Outdoor Club to Sykes this past weekend. There's not too much information on Sykes on the Internet, but I did get a few nuggets from Felix, who went there with Sarah three months ago.
On Friday afternoon, Rae and I drove up to Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park with Austin, a freshman at Stanford. When I was a frosh years ago, I never knew there was an outdoor club. In fact, there were a lot of things that I didn't know back then or wasn't involved with until after graduation like photography, cycling, and backpacking. Maybe I should go back to Stanford to get a graduate degree and relive my youth!
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At Pfeiffer, we car camped with the other 9 Redwood students, Maddie, Chris, Kwong, Megan, Caroline, Michael, Andy, Alex, and Naomi. It's easy to get lost among the 100+ campsites at Pfeiffer, and we circled around all of them before figuring out we were the first ones to have arrived around 6:00 pm. My cell phone seems to have better reception in the wilderness than in Cupertino, and I was able to, with my precious one bar of signal strength, eke out calls to the others informing them of our arrival at campsites 19 and 21. The others arrived at various times throughout the evening, capping off with Maddies' arrival deep into the night when most everyone was already asleep.
Everyone woke up or was awakened at 7:00 am in preparation for our 9:00 am departure for the hot springs. From the Pine Ridge Trailhead, it's a 10-mile hike up and down a well-travelled trail to Sykes Hot Springs. Rae remarked that the trail resembled the one alone the Skyline to Sea trail. We didn't see any banana slugs on this trail, but yes, it did look very similar.
On the hike to Sykes, I talked with some of the people in the group, including Alex, Michael, Andy, and Caroline. Michael's studying Symbolic Systems, and we had fun discussing the program and Tom Wasow's disappearing and reappearing mountain man beard. Alex and I had an interesting discussion about the incredibly shrinking CS Department. Eric Chen was telling me at Reunion that CS106X recently had more students than CS106A! Guess the depressed economy and the dot-com bust is affecting students' choices of majors!
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At the conclusion of a 6.5 hour hike, we arrived at the Sykes campsite, which bordered a smallish-looking river. Along the river banks, we spied the tents of those hikers that had passed us during our hike in, along with others who arrived even earlier. Maddie and company found a spot about 200 feet from the trailhead, but there was space for only 4 out of the 5 tents, so Rae and I camped a little ways upstream. After setting up our abode for the evening, we all hiked to the springs, which are located about 3/4 of a mile downstream.
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"No expectations, no regrets," remarked Sarah during my sophomore year. Clearly, I wasn't listening to her while dreaming of the dozen steaming pools at Sykes. That vision quickly became hazy as it became clear there were only three small pools of water ranging in temperature from lukewarm to warm. "These are the hot springs?!?" I wondered aloud. Alas, beggars can't be choosers, so I had to suffice myself with a quick dip of my hand, as there was a long line to get into the pools with darkness approaching. Sure enough, it was warm, and the myth of Sykes Hot Springs became a reality. My quest completed, I hiked back with Maddie, Rae, and Alex in falling light, stopping to take some photos of the lovely cairns marking the entrance to the hot springs. The dreamy view of water rushing by the artistically arranged cairns made the trip ultimately worthwhile.
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The next day, the group split up on the way back, with Michael leading three others out early in the morning. Rae and I departed our campsite at 9:30 am, and we made a tiring and knee-busting 10-mile trip back to the car at 2:45 pm. We passed a number of hikers on their way to Sykes. It certainly appears to be a popular destination, even at the end of the weekend!
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There are more pictures in the photo gallery. Click on the link below to see them!
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Nice Sykes article. My wife and I went back there a while ago and I was lamenting not bringing my camera the whole while. However, the hot springs are a bit of a let down. When getting the parking permit, the ranger was not the least surprised (and actually a bit snotty) that we were choosing to go there. I guess now I understand why.
-- posted by Dolan Halbrook @ Wednesday, November 13 2002, 17:46 pm EST
My wife and I went to Sykes last year and we loved it. We went the weekend after Labor Day weekend and we had the place all to ourselves. We hiked halfway the first day (due to the grueling switchbacks) and camped at Terrace Creek. During the remainder of the hike to Sykes the next day, we saw many hikers heading the other way and secretly thanked the Hot Spring God as they passed. We camped right across the river from the springs and we soaked a total of 5 times for at east an hour each. Once when we first arrived, twice in the evening, once at night by candlelight and once in the morning before we left. I brought my homebrewing thermometer and I tested the water temp in the middle pool at 95 degrees F which is perfect for me but my wife likes it a bit warmer. Perhaps the large number of people in the pools was the cause of the lower water temp. We will return someday.
Tom--posted by Tom Arnold @ Tuesday, January 7 2003, 23:02 pm EST
Vanity brought me to you. Googling my name and up you pop! Your page about Sykes really caught my imagination, then to your home page and found out you're Mac freaks! Well, well, well! here in Saudi Arabia, Mac OS is about as common as a snow storm, so it's good to see sophisticated professional design is as near as the nearest phone jack.
Regards and best wishes
Sykes of Saudi--posted by alex @ Monday, January 20 2003, 12:02 pm EST
I lik to hike hot spring very much so.
--posted by Wacky WuTang Gambio @ Friday, May 30 2003, 17:55 pm EDT
Just wanted to say thank you! Your site was invaluable to planning our trip. I'll let you know how it goes.
--posted by Mighty Mouse @ Friday, May 30 2003, 23:10 pm EDT
Anyone planning a backpacking trip into the Ventana or Silver Peak Wilderness areas should refer to the Ventana Wilderness Alliance's Trail Condition Reports at http://www.ventanawild.org/trails/
The VWA is a volunteer grassroots conservation organization that has done important work in expanding wilderness protection in the Northern Santa Lucia mountains.
They also operate a forum board at http://www.ventanawild.org/forum where you can get info from the "in crowd" . Just don't ask about hot springs...--posted by Old Man Clarke @ Monday, November 17 2003, 18:47 pm EST
Those who know don\'t tell, those who tell don\'t know.
--posted by David @ Monday, March 22 2004, 15:38 pm EST
those cairn pix are sweet! nice work!
--posted by king @ Sunday, November 21 2004, 22:38 pm PST
Just happened upon your page through some crazy google search and really enjoyed my visit. Lots of good stuff and nicely done. Thank you for sharing your stories and pictures.
--posted by amy cook @ Tuesday, January 4 2005, 17:37 pm PST
This is a nice trip report, illustrated with excellent images, the best I have seen of the area. They give a good feeling feeling for the place. I also like the zooming effect in the gallery pictures.
--posted by QT Luong @ Thursday, June 23 2005, 20:14 pm PDT
thanks for keeping this article up, it's been a great help to me for planning the past two trips and i imagine many more to come.
fantastic photos.--posted by wallace @ Wednesday, October 18 2006, 21:52 pm PDT
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