Presidents Day Trip – Part II : Ringbolt Hot Springs

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Cold air hit the west side late this year, it came around Presidents Day. When the night we left Kelso Dunes, we saw stars spreading all over the sky created a silver milky way.

Ringbolt Hot Springs Loop Trail

Back in October 2015 we came to White Rock Canyon with Jennifer and 4 of her pups without knowing we could make this hike into a loop by connecting to Ringbolt Hot Springs. I do remember we saw a sign marking hot springs, but somehow we completely ignored that. Below is a post of our previous visit:

So here we are once again, to find these mysterious hot springs we terribly missed last time. To visit during Presidents Day definitely gave us a more pleasant experience temperature wise in the Arizona area. We were walking under 100°F killing heat back in October 2015, now it’s only 65°F in Feb 2018.

The hike to the river was way easier to manage without heat.
We followed most people’s suggestions I read online to go down White Rock Canyon trail first and come back from the Hot Springs as a reward. Making the river as the middle point of this loop, even though there were signs around, we missed a few and accidentally ran into a campsite.

Water gets warmer and warmer, we are close!

This ladder could be a problem for someone who wants to bring a bigger dog to the hot springs. You could visit the location coming from the other direction unless you are confident enough carrying your furry friend 🙂 Hot springs are in between a narrow gulch, not sure about other seasons, the day we were here was cloudy so the sunlight couldn’t reach the bottom of the gulch.

There are 4 pools, each pool is warmer than the one above next, water isn’t as clear as deep creek hot springs, and also not much view to see if you don’t stay at the first entrance pool to look out at where you came from, but we still enjoy it!
This place is small and people are staying closer to each other, I assume this is the reason why we don’t see many nudes like we did at deep creek?

The path to make this hike a loop was trickier compared to the White Rock Canyon trail. On our way out there were a golden stingray swam by the sky.

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