Intrepid Road Trips: Willett Creek Hot Springs

First step: get to Ojai.

Let's back up -- the first step, for me, when I decided to join some friends on a 20-mile round-trip trek to the amazing Willet Creek Hot Springs in the Sespe Wilderness, was to put together two days of bare essentials in my trekking pack. If you're anything like me, the list of what you normally bring camping will get cut by a few items. My list wound up looking like this:

Tent

Sleeping bag

Change of clothes

Food

Hula hoops

Boombox

Fire poi

Panda suit

Giant bag of mushrooms

Eleven 40's of Panther Malt Liquor

Violet Wand

Net for catching sloths (do not hide from me, sloths)

Hardcover copy of "Infinite Jest"

Be ruthless with your packing, your back will thank you later. Now about this hike: the 9-mile trek in gives you a little of everything -- vast desert expanses, glistening river-and-stream vistas, treacherous river crossings, bracing shadow-groves of snow and pine, and in the last four miles, ALL THE HILLS. Hills that make you think "Who put this thing here? I'll kill that motherfucker," and "How am I actually seeing my future descendents making their way to the top of this thing ahead of me?" and "Why are my future descendents Chinese?"

Finally, you crest a ridge, and below you opens up a valley of rock gardens and sandy riverside beaches shaded by sycamore trees. This is Willet Creek Campground, where you drop your backpack and go up one last face-kicking 3/4 mile slope to the springs. By this point in the hike, if presented with a choice between trudging up one more hill and nibbling Dan Rather's balls, you'd probably have to sit down and think about it. But you go anyway. Because up top is a treasure.

Nestled inside a verdant canyon is a tub big enough to fit ten (or more, depending on cozy you and your friends are) redolent of sulfur and wet rock, soundtracked by the whisper of the running springs. You're technically not allowed to get naked, but if Johnny Law wants to schlep into the middle of nowhere just to write you an ass-ticket, se la vie; it'll be worth it, just to float unencumbered in that toasty warm tub, letting the water ease your weary spirits back to life. Beyond the hills, the sun goes down; later the sky will become a riot of stars. You know, in the back of your mind, that you still have to trek another 10 miles to return home tomorrow, but as Lou Reed once said, "that's just some other time."

For now, you've got nothing to do but sit and soak and lay your burdens down. 

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• WHAT: Willet Creek Hot Springs Trek
  
• WHERE: Start at the Piedra Blanca Trailhead
• WHEN: Good year round, best when it's not too hot
  
• $$$: $10 for parking
  

Getting Steamy On Sunset

There are many reasons to hang out on the Sunset Strip. It's 1986 and you're in a hair-metal band. You just bought a t-shirt adorned with rhinestones and a tiger, and you want some place to show it off. You enjoy Rohypnol and mechanical bulls. You've gotten lost. So many reasons!

I'm not making this sound very appealing, am I?

Here's a not-joking reason to go to the Strip: hidden inside the art-deco awesomeness of the Sunset Tower Hotel, there's the Turkish Hammam -- a secret stone bathouse. With cascading water jets and eucalyptus-scented vapor that clears your lungs and flushes your pores, it's a luxury steam-room on steroids. (The heat controls go up to 10, but anything above 3 is essentially reserved for crazed Russians.) Book it in advance, and you and a (close) friend can spend half an hour lounging naked in a Italian marble hideaway. Consider it a good start on your post-Thanksgiving road back to sexiness.

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•WHAT: Your own personal Turkish bath
•WHERE: The Sunset Tower Hotel
•WHEN: Daily, noon-6 PM
•$$$: $40 for a couple

Intrepid Daytrip #1: Skinny Dipping In Esalen Hot Springs

Ever driven up the US-1 toward Malibu and been struck with the urge to just keep driving?  Good. Because if you keep going far enough -- say, up to the craggy Lord-Of-The-Rings-by-way-of-Brian-Wilson landscape of Big Sur -- you may find your intuition richly rewarded at the Esalen Institute’s clothing-optional hot springs.

Founded in the 60’s as a spiritual hideaway for the burgeoning free love movement, the Esalen Institute helped cement California’s reputation as The Place To Go When You’re Too Weird To Exist Anywhere Else. But that was then and this is now: today, Esalen caters to a more well-heeled brand of seeker, and if you want to  take a dip in their baths, you must first purchase a spot in one of their workshops, while forking over a fee only The Man could appreciate.

But if you’re willing to stay up late...

Between 1 AM and 3 AM, the hot springs are open to the public. You gotta call and reserve your spot in advance. You gotta pre-pay $20. You gotta park you car on the side of the highway and watch the clock tick past midnight. You gotta stay sober – belligerent trustees of modern chemistry are unwelcome here. Eventually, a mellow employee will welcome you down the impossibly steep driveway and into a cavernous stone bathhouse. Here, too giddy with exhaustion to trifle with antiquated concepts like “shame”, you throw on your birthday suit (swimsuits are occasionally seen, but why half-ass this?), and scamper off to soak.

The baths are large stone things, pungent with sulfuric minerals, illuminated by sparse candlelight and perched atop cliffs overlooking the Pacific. You look out over the edge and your guts tingle with vertigo as waves blitzkrieg the shore far below. On a clear night, you’ll see more shooting stars than you’ve ever seen in your life. For three hours, a time in which you won’t hear a human voice above a whisper, reality takes on a loose, elastic quality. At 3 AM, when they close down the tubs and you get re-dressed in a bathhouse full of hazy-eyed strangers, you’re left with an odd sense of peacefulness as you trek back to your car. It’s the kind of experience you’d normally chalk up to existing only in a dream. Luckily for you, you know better. 

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• WHAT: Late-night hot springs at The Esalen Institute
• WHERE: 55000 California 1, Big Sur CA 93920
• WHEN: By reservation, 1 AM - 3 AM nightly
• $$$: $20 per person (credit card only)