Hi--I write books on hot springs (Hot Springs and Hot Pools of the Southwest, and Hot Springs..Northwest. I am always interested in people's response to the pools they visit adn their evaluation of the springs. Of course, I just love to find out about anything new that I don't currently know about. I'd love to hear from you or at my email address hsprings@ix.netcom.com

Welcome to our new topic. What can we do to get the word out about our 'springs of the world' website project? What is the address of your website?

wish I were near a hot spring now. The snow is beautiful, it's the cold I stuggle with.

What an image, steaming hot springs water rising from the snow covered terrain.

It's reality in some of these parts.

hey, i also wrote a book on hot springs, "spas & hot springs of mexico." am always eager to share my knowledge with others and to learn about new ones. i cover everything from the chi-chi spas to hot holes in the ground. there are supposed to be 700 hot springs in mexico and even i haven't visited them all. let me know what you have found. www.mexicomike.com.

Can you give us your top ten list?

my own top ten depends on whether one is looking for world-class spas or mineral waters. in spas 1. punta serena, tenacatita 2. cocoyoc, cuatla 3. hosteria las quintas, cuernavaca. 4 mision del sol, cuernavaca. 5. paradise village, pto vallarta. 6. ixtapan de la sal (only for the waters, the spa is so-so)7. rancho la puerta, tecate. 8. rio caliente the rest are roughtly equal. mineral waters: 1. la caldera, abasolo, 2. caracha, michocacan, 3. buenaventura, san juan cosala, 4. taboada, san migiel de allende 5, gogorron, san luis potosi, 6. taninul, cd. valles, 7, then it gets difficult to categorize.

Tell us about punta serena!

Hot Springs Jim Powell mailto://chimpowl@well.com just returned from a 10-day roadtrip to see dylan's shows at the el rey in LA last week. we managed to hit 3 hotsprings in the course of our travels, failing to find or access several others. we tried to stop at esalen on our way down the coast but that week it was closed, and failed to find several obscure springs in the Santa Ynez mts, despite assiduous poking around. this past sunday, though, on the way to Joshua Tree we stopped at a nameless spring in the mts above Palm Springs. after crossing 75 feet of boulder field you intersect the remains of a driveway & follow it about a third of a mile to the foundations of ruined rural estate. down a side alley from here is the pool, about 7 X 12 feet, lined with cemented stone, 4 feet at its deepest, i thought low 90s, by friends said high 90s, surrounded by huge old palms with a view of the lights of Palm Springs in the distance below. nameless & known only to locals, it's clean & well kept up. a half dozen new homemade candles were waiting for us on the deck around the pool's rim. next morning in Joshua Tree we woke to snow on the cacti. coming back up the coast we stopped at las cruces, south of san luis. it's only a half mile hike off the road (300 feet of elevation gain) so we expected the worst, but it was quite clean, and unoccuppied on a tuesday afternoon in december. set at the crotch of converging precipitous drainages, surrounded by huge sycamores & live oaks, willow- and palm- shaded, it is a charming spot. there are two pools, clean enough, shallowish, tepid rather than hot. but the surroundings are magic, defintely. i imagine we were lucky to have it to ourselves. it's a state park, costs $2 to park. last night (this morning, actually, at 1:00 AM) we were among the dozen assembled at esalen's driveway. stone pools at cliff edge overhanging the infinite pacific, delectable water too hot to soak unmixed, the moonless starry firmament outspread across the infinite night, boy orion & his dog chasing the kite of the pleades west toward san francisco -- multo fantastico! earlier, an hour after sunset, we pulled out at an overlook & got out to gaze at venus, mars & jupiter, continuing their dance in the west, dazzled & amazed by the wide pool of venus' reflected light in a pearly puddle on the waves.

More from Jim Powell: Left Berkeley at 3:15 friday afternoon heading up I 80 across the valley & over the sierra, then 100 miles northeast on Nevada highways and finally 18 miles out gravel road into the desert, pulled in to Trego hotspring six dizzy hours later. The spring has a steady flow of too hot water issuing into a 200 foot long ditch 8 foot wide. 20 feet from the source it's cool enough to soak. The water smells fairly sulfurous with a bizarre undertone or hint of creosote or something like. Nicen deep, funky muddy bottom (sorry I forgot my sandals or surfslippers; my companion showed more prudence). Besides a couple offroad vehical enthusiasts camped a quarter mile away we had the spring to ourselves, a gorgeous balmy desert night with the moon one night short of full. Climb in & soak for a while, climb out & stand in the cool desert night air, drying. Repeat as desired. The Western Pacific RR passes about 40 feet beyond the spring and provided a midnight diversion -- headlights visible for 20 minutes coming across the Black Rock Desert before the diesels were audible, then heard for 10 minutes more before the freight hurtled by. Another train provided a second wakeup call a half hour after the dawn's. The shaking earth makes an effective alarm clock. After a morning soak we drove into the thriving metropolis of Gerlach ("pop. 400" but I doubt it), fueled up & bought the local map of these remote & otherwise largely uncharted parts, and took off north on nevada-mostly- gravel-highway-34 up south willow creek canyon, rolling sage hills swelling spare & desolate above a charming stream & litoral -- 2 yearling fawns bathing at a shady bend -- creekbend cottonwood shade at a turnout campsite. Continued up 34 as far as the "Petrified Forest" ('petrified log' would be more like it), and actually a couple miles past it in search of some petroglyphs (which we failed to find, but did see 3 wild horses along the way, as remote as freedom in america in the late 20th century -- just shut up & take your pee-test), then backtracked a few miles to take the road (as it is jocularly termed) to High Rock Lake, meaning to loop back south along the west side of the Black Rock Range in pursuit of the elusive Double Hot Springs on the edge of the Black Rock Desert. In a rented 'mid-size' Dodge passenger car it took us about 90 minutes to drive the first 12.5 of the 15 miles to the lake before being balked by a bog at the foot of Little High Rock Canyon (where we were duly enrolled among the visitors of the Little High Rock Hilton, Prop. Prarie Dog. A 4-wheel drive might have been somewhat speedier but wouldn't have saved the day in the end: the water is several feet deep. On the way in we stopped nearly at random for an hour's hike, clambering up some volcanic rock formations to a local summit. Along the way we found an area perched above a string of volcanic outcrops, with a commanding view of a broad valley, where there are scattered many half-fashioned obsidian arrowheads, the flawed discards of an ancient workshop, as well as a few of the raw arrowheadsize gobbets of obsidian (are they called 'geodes'?) from which the arrowheads were made. Truly a haunted spot. Balked in our attempt to reach High Rock Lake and Double Hot Springs, we retraced our path to Gerlach, then set out for our evening's destination, the hotsprings at Pyramid Lake, circling around the north end of the lake on a 60 mile series of gravel roads, and entering the reservation from the north west. Along the way we encountered several antelope, the last a buck who stopped 20 feet away to check us out when we stopped to do the same -- graceful even while skittishly turning, stunningly beautiful appaloosa-like hide of shining white mottled with tawny gold, curly little antlers oddly suggesting shepherds crooks or stamens, speeding away. It was Saturday evening & there were maybe 30 people camped around the main hot springs (near the geyser) at Needle Rocks, Pyramid Lake. We could find no trace of the 2 other Hot Springs shown on the topo as further south and west. We tripped around for a while but decided we wanted more solitude & drove north along the lake shore 8 or 10 miles, made dinner & slept Awakened at dawn by huge fierce Paiute warrior mosquitoes, we hit the road early, driving south through Nevada, then into California behind Bridgeport, stopping at Travertine Hot Springs for a welcome if chlorinated soak in full view of the magnificent and sublime spectacle of the snowclad eastern escarpment of the Sierra, then over Sonora Pass, stopping to admire the hulking snowclad backsides of Three Chimneys, East Flange Rock & Granite Dome, those mighty mountain presences that have dominated our western horizon from the other side two summers now,and finally across the valley and back to Berkeley in time for dinner just as Picante was closing 10:00 pm Sunday. Ole!

Ah, thanks for posting this, Terry! It was so relaxing to read this. Anyway, where I'm from in Germany, we also have lots of springs and spas, just north of Frankfurt. It's just not as wild and free as one might wish, it's very medical or commercial. We have lots of rehabilitation things, cardiological as well as orthopedic/rheumatic, where people from all over the world come to get better. In some places, there are pools with hot or warm water, salty and mineral rich. You can swim there (against a fee), and there are also treatments. We have very nice mineral waters, some nearly red from the high amount of iron (that's why people from my county are known all over the world as being somewhat ironic...), some with lots of sulfuric compounds, some are extremely salty, some are just like - water! Anyway, most Americans (and British, too) have a hard time drinking some german mineral waters (not to be confused with table waters); even most bottled brands don't fare well with them, as they don't like water with a taste and/or carbonation. At least I haven't met any that liked real mineral water.