Agua Caliente

Agua Caliente
Nov 27 trip to the end of the road .
Started at the Ranch at the intersection on west valley road and the road south toward Matomi. The typical place where most folks stop is at the corral. From that point is it is short walk up the wash to view the Rock art. Easy to find because there is a substantial fence at that point. One can drive to the gate and park then scramble down hill over big boulders to get to the rock art. Walk on the near side of the fence (east side) to avoid being trapped on the wrong side of the fence and unable to get to the rock art. The rock art is in pretty bad shape now days.
My hike started at the corral
upload online picture


Walked down to the wash starting in the above pic.
The wash looks like this (all looking east)



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Arriving at the Rock art at the fence

upload my picture

Next looking NW to the gate

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Rock art





I climbed up that crack above to get the next pic




The road to just past the gate is easy. Then it becomes more difficult with many stops to decide where the path should go. Turns out the ranch hands have been pruning the bushes to a point (minimal). We could see machete slashes for the trimming. If one was to zoom in on the track it is Easy to see where we had issues because the GPS dithers at those places. What we had to do was look for a path the force out way thru the willow like bushes that were higher than the Jeeps. I followed cow paths and I found that the heavy branches were pruned sometime in the past. Still I had to use my pruning saw where overhanging branches leaning over my path were too big to pass.
On my track I annotated the end of the road on my GPS map. Also noted is the end of vehicle travel, the cabin, and the spring. There is no evidence of any spring along the way, but we had to cross the gully many times and each place had muddy water. That spring notation courtesy of Lou Wells from 20 +years ago.
Our hike from where we parked was short as we came to a substantial fence with no gate. The bushes were much heavier with no path for us to force thru. I found a sign indication Property boundary but did not have my camera or phone – shucks.
Heading into the first difficult place in the gulley

<a href='https://postimg.cc/sBNDt4xr' target='_blank'><img src='https://i.postimg.cc/sBNDt4xr/1-R-IMG-0187-R.jpg' border='0' alt='1-R-IMG-0187-R'/></a>

Came to the cabin


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Side road heading east. Side road is bad and leads to an abandoned shack





Arrived back at the gate


Last of all here is the image from back in the day from a Cessna 182. Courtesy of Lou Wells



Obviously, nothing similar these days.
I would guess Lou’s Palm tree is at the side canyon, and I noted that place on my track

Google image
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Attachment: Auga Caliente.kml (121kB)
This file has been downloaded 267 times

From http://www.vivabaja.com/404/
David’s hot spring 30°38.85', 115°12.41

The points you have called DK Spring and Spring are wrong, The hot spring is across the arroyo. We all posted using Map Datum NAD27 Mexico back then, to match with the Baja Almanac and topo maps. This was before Google Earth (Map Datum WGS84). On the first page I have a waypoint at a road junction, and include the map datum used: 30°47.03', 115°09.95' (NAD27)

See my web pages:
2004: http://www.vivabaja.com/404/page6.html
2000: http://www.vivabaja.com/baja_2001/page2.html and http://www.vivabaja.com/baja_2001/page3.html

The BajaLou photo that I added text and circles to show the hot spring location on the west side of the arroyo where the arroyo is going north/south.

From http://www.vivabaja.com/404/
David’s hot spring 30°38.85', 115°12.41 NAD27Mexico
Converted
Now 30 38.857, -115 12.452 WGS84
[url=https://postimages.org/]
FYI the point moved 75.7meters

[/url]

[Edited on 12-8-2019 by PaulW]

Paul (and others seeking the hot spring original location)

OK, using my GPS from back in 2004, the waypoint I recorded on it (at map datum WGS84, in degree-decimal seconds) is: N30°38'50.8", W115°12'27.4"

Converting to decimal degrees (most common GPS posting setting): N30°38.846', W115°12.456'

Here are the two waypoints on Google Earth similar to the area and direction you used.


Decimal seconds


Decimal minutes

This shows that both decimal minutes and decimal seconds are the same point on Google Earth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the Google Earth view that most closely simulates BajaLou and Warnout's flight photo, with my hot spring waypoint... looking eastward. Just below is the aerial photo with my notations...





You can see my circle made in 2004 (before Google Earth made aerial mapping so much easier!) and the waypoint pin map, made today, are almost identical.

==========================================================================

OK so, here is what the fuss is about. Yes, the canyon has likely changed... but the hot spot still should be on the same side of the canyon floor.



The main source spring. It is on the right side of the canyon as you are walking upstream. Here the canyon is going southward and the spring is on a bench to the right, west side.



Here is the hot stream flowing towards the camera from where it dropped off the bench, on the right. My friend ('jide') is crouching where the water flows down from the spring, on the right. A hot tub, lined with rocks, is right there. However, the spring water is so hot, bathing is impossible without bringing cool water from the canyon stream over somehow. The canyon stream is about 50 feet away (to the left in the photo).



Looking down the hot stream to where the previous photo was taken. This is the hot tub and the hot waterfall into it from the spring (to the left of the photo). The water was measured at 140°F by the Hot Springs book author who was here. Jide and I went about 300 feet down the hot stream before it was cool enough (about 105°) to dip in.



I climbed high up on the ridge to get a better look towards the hot spring, it is on the right, down there. That barrel cactus was close to 7 feet tall!

I have been to Agua Caliente twice, first in June 2004 and again in June 2005. On both occasions the road gradually deteriorated above Ejido Agua Caliente. We camped up the canyon and hiked to the springs both times, the source was about as hot as described here, we were able to get into the stream below the spring that was at a tolerable temperature but not very deep. Found the pool in David K's photo but it had cow poop in it. It was still quite magical. In 2005 it was possible to drive a bit further up the canyon with 4wd, and a local crew was working up there on constructing a very small reservoir that would provide water for the ejido. I recall they were driving what appeared to be late 70s Dodge Power wagons. Not sure what became of that project or if it was ever completed. Also saw the largest (6' long) rattlesnake I have ever encountered up by the hot spring.

Anyway, if it is of any interest here are the coordinates in decimal degrees I had recorded in 2005:

Gate: N 30°39.380' W 115°10.194'
End of the passable section of road: N 30°38.983' W 150°12.058'
Hot Spring: N 30°38.988' W 115°12.410'
Blue Palm: N 30°38.597' W 115°12.900'

After reading this, my question is, has erosion caused the source to become obscured or emerge elsewhere in the canyon? And exactly how far might one be able to drive up the canyon?

Thanks for posting this, mi gusta!


[Edited on 12-11-2019 by Geothermal-Shane]

[Edited on 12-11-2019 by Geothermal-Shane]

Yes, I watched his Relive video yesterday on Facebook... I did ask him a question but he has yet to respond... The question was why did they not go any further up the canyon? Was the road washed-out (still)? That was my findings in March 2017, when I was last in there... not much beyond the gate/ petroglyphs the road was washed out with a cliff! There was a rough cut Jeep path detouring the new cliff, but traveling alone, I didn't chance going further. Photos are in my Trip #3 report. http://forums.bajanomad.com/viewthread.php?tid=85989

The cliff in the road...




[Edited on 4-5-2020 by David K]

David Wrote:
The cliff in the road...




So that cliff is still there and the road continues drivers side along the bank then down into the place pictured with all the standing water


Maybe I forgot to mention. After the wet swampy area after the spring there is a steep bank to go up. However there are minimal rocks on the approach. Traction up that bank is not good and the other Jeep had to do it over with a faster start.

And I don't think anyone would want to try to drive up the wash to the rock art. It is doable, but pretty rough going. The wash at that point is strongly fenced at that point and one cannot drive further up the wash. To get the the rock are it is a short walk from the corral with a good place to park. Walking to the rock art from the sign on the road at the fence gate is not recommended. There is no trail and it looks like tough going along the fence line. The hike to the rock art starts at the left side of the corral. and leads into the wash.


Most of the people driving with Wornout on his trip consisted of 2wd sand rails And stopped to turn around at the place after the cliff.

[Edited on 2-13-2021 by PaulW]

Do you mean the washout cliff is long gone? My picture is still there

Here is my Garmin/ inReach track map of the Agua Caliente entrance in March 2017. I added the waypoint markers for the three places in discussion...



The Gate:


The Road Washout:


The Petroglyph Cliff "Pinturas" (seen from the gate):

Back looking for the A Calienty Spring
David s spring: 30 38.857, -115 12.451
The other spring: 30 38.84, -115 12.446
Wp nearby on the road 30 38.8, -115 12.425
So, I drove with John B. up there again on 4/8. Conditions noted were flowing water and deep mud on several stream crossings.
We stopped at WP 17 and we noted that the springs were way over to the west and to get there we noted a tangle of trees and sticker bushes. No way I was going over to those locations. I thought about finding a way to drive up the drainage, but once again we would have had to make a new road to get to the water flow area.
If you study the KML file you can see that almost every crossing of the wash caused us to make hard turns. Other places where we had difficulty finding the overgrown road shows up in the track without backing, etc.
Looking at the track on Google Earth one would never know that the wash was so overgrown with trees and bushes.

I used my handheld GPS and walked up the drainage to the fence line and took a picture of the sign. The fence crosses the wash for mountain to mountain to mountain. That walk would have been a difficult drive.

On the way back we stopped at the gate and walked down the fence line to the rock art. There is a hole in the fence down by the wash, and it is an easy hike. Much easier than walking from the corral up the wash.

More precise location for the cabin is 30 38.914, -115 11.722
Unusual item probably not related to a spring? Location of a cistern is 30 38.941, -115 12.124

Stream bank images in order when heading West:











Attachment: A Caliente 4-8-20.kml (130kB)
This file has been downloaded 206 times

Nice work... I like the GPS on the photos.

The hot springs, regardless of GPS or satellite images, is not in the middle of the arroyo (as your image shows 'DK Spring'. It is up on the berm along the west side (left side in your image) of the arroyo at this location.
You can smell the hot water before you get there... sulfur, but not real strong. The hot water stream drops down the berm from the source spring and creates its own hot stream which runs hundreds of feet to where it finally meets the cool-water stream in the middle of the arroyo.



[Edited on 4-17-2020 by David K]

Quote: Originally posted by David K

I am sure flash floods change things a lot! I would really like you to find the hot spring and hot stream and photograph it to compare to 2004. The volume of hot (140°F) water pouring out of the ground and creating a hot stream, right there, was amazing.