Camping and Hot Pots

Marci, Malina, Rosey and I went camping this weekend at the Diamond Campground in Diamond Fork Canyon. It was a little strange for me to go camping so close to home (about 15 minutes away) but it was a nice campground and we still had a lot of fun. Hey, any excuse to build a campfire is a good one... even if it is only 15 miles from home.

On Saturday morning we packed up camp and then hiked to the Spanish Fork Hot Pots on the Three Forks Trail. Parking was a beeyatch because the canyon road is extremely narrow and they have put signs up prohibiting parking anywhere near the trailhead. So, we parked about a quarter mile away and hiked along the road to the trailhead (which look abandoned despite the fact that there were a number of other hikers on the trail).

After crossing the river on a pile of sticks and logs, I felt compelled to come up with a better option for future traversals of the river. So, I started hunting for large rocks and plunking them down in the water to make stepping stones for a safer, easier crossing. In the end, I'm not sure how much easier it was to cross the river on the stepping stones but I still had fun building. Thankfully, Rosey and Marci were very indulgent of my bridge building compulsion and waited patiently for me to get it out of my system :)


The trail followed a river through the canyon for 3 miles and ended at a small waterfall that fed pools of water that were being warmed by some hot springs. Someone had built little structures around some of the pools turning them into nature-jacuzzi's. I hear that a lot of people come up here to get naked in the hot pots. After seeing the water and the muck at the bottom of the pools, I'm not sure that I would really want to get naked in these pools.

The rest of the pictures are here.

Here is a map of the hike in Google Earth. The GPS was having some trouble getting satellite reception at some spots in the canyon on the way back, so the trail looks a little jumpy.