Bathing in the rain. Hot Springs Cove. June 23-24, 2012
27 June 2012 | posted at Tahsis
Elsie Hulsizer
Photo: Steve relaxing in the hot springs.
When we arrived at Hot Springs Cove on Saturday afternoon, I was dismayed to see the rain start as soon as we anchored. “Let‘s wait for awhile,” said Steve. We waited and it still rained and we waited some more. The sky got even darker. But a chance to get off the boat and have a hot bath called us. We donned raingear over clothes and swimsuits, stuffed towels in our backpack and left.
The trail felt solid under foot and despite the rain, wasn’t slippery. Skunk cabbage and ferns glistened with water and the “ribit” of frogs came from the forest. A few hardy souls passed us on their way back, but when we got to the springs no one was there. We left our clothes in the spacious changing shelter and walked down to the springs in our bathing suits. I was surprised at how warm the rain felt on my bare skin. But even more surprising -- there was no else in the pools! We enjoyed a soak to ourselves for awhile until five men off a sailboat circumnavigating the island joined us.
If that many people were in the pools on rainy day, how many would be there in the sun? We made the hike the next evening, a Sunday, after a jaunt to Hesquiat. The sun was out, the trail was dry and the pools were absolutely empty. We had our soak and walked back. In more than 30 years on this coast, we’d never before had the Hot Springs to ourselves. And it wasn’t even raining. So it pays to come in June, especially on a Sunday.