June 11-12, 2013
Tuesday
Sadly, this is our day to depart Julie’s lovely house and head
north and east, to some more Colorado fishing rivers. We will attempt to ease
the pain of departure by stopping for a soak in Pagosa Springs, a mountain town on the
San Juan River blessed with some seriously hot springs (the water comes out of
the ground here at 148 degrees). Jack also plans to fish the San Juan; see his
account below.
We spend Tuesday morning cleaning up and packing, and run
into town for a few supplies. We’re ready to leave around 3 pm and bid a fond
farewell to Julie’s house and cute little car. It only takes about an hour to
get to Pagosa Springs. I’ve called ahead and reserved a camping spot for tonight and
tomorrow night, so we’ll have time to get in a good soak and some fishing time
on Wednesday. The campground is right on the river; we have to drive through
downtown Pagosa Springs to get to it—it looks like a cute town. Lots of water sports
like rafting and tubing. As soon as we
get the RoadTrek set up, we head to the river bank to check it out—Jack thinks
it looks promising. I make supper and then Jack gears up for fishing. However,
not much luck tonight—nothing taking his flies. He gives up after an hour or so
and we read and work on computers till bedtime.
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Campsite about one mile east of Pagosa Springs. |
Wednesday
We’re really looking forward to today’s soak in the hot
springs. Julie has recommended Pagosa as her favorite hot springs, and the resort
website really looks cool! According to the Guinness Book of World Records,
this town has the world’s deepest geothermal hot springs, over 1000 feet deep,
which is pretty amazing! The resort where we’re going to soak has an assortment
of 24 soaking pools terraced into a hillside overlooking the San Juan River.
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View of pools from across the San Juan River. |
All
the water comes from the big “Mother Spring,” as they call it. The pools are at
different temperatures, from 83 degrees F all the way up to 114 degrees. The
smell of sulphur meets us as we pull into the parking lot—these springs have a
lot of minerals in them, and formations of piled up minerals—mini mountains of
varied colors—are all around the area, where the spring water comes to the
surface.
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Close-up of mineral dome and pools. |
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| The Springs lodge. |
We pay our fee and change in their bathhouse, and head
out to the terraced hill of soaking pools. It’s a gorgeous setting, with the
river running by and snow-capped mountains in the distance. Steps here and
there lead down to the flowing river water—if the pools are too hot for you,
you can cool off with a dip in the river. Lots of kids and teens are playing in
the river, wading, tubing, kayaking—just having a ball.
Jack and I fancy ourselves to be sort of connoisseurs of
hot springs, as we will go out of our way to try out a soak whenever we spot
one, and have soaked in springs all over. But we quickly
agree that this has got to be at or near the top of our list of favorites. The
variety and the lovely setting are fabulous!
We move around from pool to pool—every pool is very
different—and check out the various temperatures. We end up liking around 102
to 105 degrees the best. Very relaxing! They have a small refreshment stand and
we share a fruit smoothie, which cools us down a little.
Finally we decide to get dressed and see if Jack can find
some decent fishing in the river. We’ve bought passes that let us leave and
come back, so we plan to come back for another soak around sunset. I’ll let
Jack tell about his fishing adventures.
Jack here.
First just a little background. Trout in the San Juan River in
New Mexico? I could hardly believe it, but that’s what my Trout Unlimited book
said years ago when I first started using it as my "bucket list" of trout streams to fish.
So several years ago I finally fished the San Juan River (a tailwater of the Navajo Dam)
and I caught a lot of trout. It was a great river to fish. So when I started planning my fishing trip in
Colorado this time, I noticed that the headwaters of the San Juan River passed through a
little town called Pagosa Springs, CO. I didn’t know at the time that Pagosa
Springs had a world class hot springs as Carol describes above, I just thought
it would be nice to go there and fish the headwaters of the San Juan, since I had enjoyed my time fishing it in New Mexico so much.
So after we finished our morning soaks in “The Springs,” we
visited a local fly shop and asked the owner for advice on fishing the stream. “It’s
fishing great,” he said, “because the salmon fly hatch is moving upstream." Now
I knew about salmon flies from fishing the Snake River in Idaho. They are
an aquatic insect of the stonefly family found only in a few western streams,
and the trout love them because they are very big (two to three times the size of stoneflies found in the creeks and rivers back east). They crawl about the bottom
of a stream for a year or two and then one day they crawl onto the bank and
hatch out as a very large winged insect so they can do their sex thing. A few
days later, the females return to the river, where they drop down onto the water to lay
their eggs. That’s when the trout go after them. “Do you have any salmon fly flies for sale?” I
asked the owner. “Nope,” he says, “I’m fresh out…but I do have some similar patterns
you might try.” So I bought a half dozen of the two types he recommended. One
was very gaudy with big white hair for wings. Didn’t quite look like a salmon fly
to me.
After a little advice on where to fish, we headed off in
search of a place as far downstream as possible in hopes that I would run into
the salmon fly hatch moving upstream. On the way we ran into another fly shop.
This time the owner does have salmon fly patterns. They sure look like the salmon flies I remembered.
We found a nice park by the river about a quarter mile
below where we had soaked in the hot springs. I put on my waders, set up my fly
rod, and tied on the salmon fly imitation I got from the second fly shop. I
fished all the likely spots and hooked only one trout that immediately got away.
Carol came down with her iPad and took a few shots of me in the water with the
hot springs in the background.
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Me with The Springs lodge and pools in the background. |
I decided to tie on the gaudy imitation with the
big white wings and Carol suggested I try to wade out more so I could fish
nearer the opposite bank. Perhaps it was the gaudy imitation, or perhaps it was Carol’s
keen eye, but after about the second or third cast I had on a large trout. He
started fighting hard and ran line off my reel. All I could do was hang onto
the rod and let the drag on the reel slow him down. But he didn’t slow down, he
got off. A few more casts with big gaudy and I had another big trout on. This
one didn’t get away and Carol nicely documented the catch with her iPad. I
hooked about four more trout, but could not land anymore. One trout stole one
of my big gaudies when he broke my line.
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This one didn't get away. |
What I day. I love this place.
Bird species count:
Vermilion flycatcher, turkey vulture, Bell’s vireo, *golden-fronted
woodpecker, Say’s phoebe, northern cardinal, greater roadrunner, house finch, common
raven, *northern rough-winged swallow, *summer tanager, *prothonotary warbler, *yellow-breasted
chat, *yellow-rumped warbler, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, cliff
swallow, Mexican jay, black-headed grosbeak, black-chinned hummingbird, Wilson’s warbler, *Scott’s
oriole, chipping sparrow, house sparrow, lesser goldfinch, black-crested
titmouse, acorn woodpecker, scrub jay, *western kingbird, white-winged dove,
*canyon towhee, *Grace’s warbler, *zone-tailed hawk, *curve-billed thrasher,
Bullock’s oriole, Gambel’s quail, great horned owl, black-throated sparrow,
*cactus wren, ladder-backed woodpecker, white-crowned sparrow, brownheaded
cowbird, Brewer’s blackbird, *pyrrhuloxia, hooded oriole, verdin, crow, Anna’s
hummingbird, dark-eyed junco, white-throated swift, Steller’s jay, mallard,
common egret, brown pelican, western bluebird, loggerhead shrike, Audubon’s
warbler, robin, Canada goose, black-billed magpie, red-winged blackbird,
redtailed hawk
State count:
14 [Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada,
Utah, Colorado]
Odometer count:
Surber, VA: 107,435
Pagosa, CO: 114,421
Accommodations avg
cost: 64 nts, avg $12.56/night
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