Alford Hot Springs and Desert

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We had a mammoth journey from Wallowa to South Oregon in terms of distance and environment.
We travelled our most miles today 208 retracing our route through Baker City John Day heading south to Burns where we camped one night in a really crappy RV park.

The next morning we left after Keith flooding the laundry room 😳. He plugged an top loader washer that was unplugged to return 30 minutes later to find it had leaked all over the room.
He unplugged it again, mopped the floor and left.
The next morning we had a run in with the woman camp host. We had no refuse drain on our pitch. She told Keith it was in the ground, which we knew it would be but it wasn't. She came over booted ever rock on the pitch looking for it. I said we've already done that. She took off telling us to use another pitch. We gave them a 1 star review.

Anyway out journey towards Alford was incredible. We stopped at Crystal Crane hot springs for a dip and swim in their pool. €10 for a day pass. They also had an RV park we could have stayed at, but we're not to know.

The pool was hot and relaxing swimming around looking up at the sky and surrounding countryside.

What came next left us speechless.

The drive down to Alford along a 30 mile dirt track was amazing. We were met by the biggest fault mountains in the US. The earth rose up 7000 feet, straight up to create the Steen mountains.

What we did on arrival at Alford Hot springs was even more incredible.

The area has 60 square miles of playa desert. That's when rain falls, they get 7 inches a year, pools then evaporates leaving layers of salt deposits.

You need permission to drive onto it as all roads leading to ot are private. As we were staying at the springs we got permission to drive into it.
It was the most erry experience I have ever had. It's vast. Its quiet, eerily quiet like being on the moon, and there was only us there!
Just check out the photos.

Then there's more.

We got to use the hot springs pool. The water comes out of the ground about 30 feet away at 140 degrees. By some clever engineering it get to the pool at 60 to 80 degrees.

It's a tin shack wooden boarding log carved bench overlooked by The might Steen mountains with the desert infront of you.

We camped here for the night, it was too windy for a camp fire and too cloudy for a starry night. It rained overnight and the whole desert was covered with a layer of water. No one allowed on to it until it all dries up again.

Life doesn't really get any better than this. ❤️

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