It was Heather who proposed visiting a natural hot spring near Jemez; I hadn’t even known such places existed, much less how to get to them. Or rather, when I thought of “natural hot springs” I actually had in mind the idea of a hot spring with a building around it, entrance fees, and instructions. I’m not sure why I had this idea, but I did.
This hot spring, while nothing like the image I had in mind, was still a negotiation between man and nature. For starters, the spring had a trail leading up to it—people were expected there, so a path had been built for them. (It wasn’t just a trail worn down by use; near the road, the path was broad and level, lined with bricks and fence posts and signs exhorting visitors to stay on the trail because cutting their own switchbacks would undermine the integrity of the soil.)
Near the springs, however, the trail became harder to navigate. There were stone steps to aid in climbing, but they were narrow and wet. Everything was slick with water or fallen leaves. The last few yards to the springs required clambering over boulders. It was like the mountain was reasserting itself, letting water flow where it may and rocks rest where they fall.
The spring too was a collaboration between man and nature. Water poured forth of its own accord, but the rocks around it had been caulked with cement to make the pool, fashioning a spa in which a half-dozen people might wade and relax. Algae coated the rocks in the pool and the water was clear but not “purified”—a sign at the trailhead warned visitors about the naturally-occurring microorganisms in the spring and cautioned against getting any water in or around the nose.
In some places man’s handiwork was lasting; a rock carving from 1949 that hadn’t yet weathered; the cement holding the pools together, still there from at least 17 years ago when Heather last visited. In some places engineering had failed: the entire top part of the trail had been washed out in a recent flood, and the trail itself was blocked off by orange barrels and a tarp (which we climbed over anyway).
Heather noted that the broad trail and sign and general attention paid to the area were new—last time she’d been to the spring, the climb down from the highway had been much steeper. Maybe as the spring became more well-known and frequented, the risks the trip posed no longer seemed acceptable to authorities—too many people hiking to the spring, too many of them inexperienced and prone to injury. So the trail was widened and bolstered, the warning against microorganisms put up, and the entire area cordoned off when conditions were deemed unsafe.
The whole area might thus have become more welcoming to amateurs and casual hikers, to young and old. Maybe a retiree can make it up the new stone steps when they wouldn’t have been able to make it to the spring before. The water can be enjoyed by more people this way, surely. But at what point does it become tamed, more of a manmade attraction than a natural one?
And as the area begins to look more and more “official,” does that change how people interact with it? If something goes wrong on a well-marked trail, does that give the hiker an excuse to sue the government for negligence? If a microorganism makes someone sick, should we start chlorinating the water? If there’d been a fence around the spring and an instruction manual, would any of us still have wanted to go?
No comments:
Post a Comment