This is definitely an under advertised spring that is well worth a trip to see! It is hidden in the middle of nowhere down a gravel road that is more pot holes than road. I have a small four door sports car and was definitely wishing for a truck! By the time I pulled in to the "parking lot" I was convinced that I had just made a very bad decision. But, since I was not ready to tackle driving back UP the road, I got out and started hiking the half mile trail (I think parks, when they don't know the distance of a short trail, just label it a half mile. Lol. Just a theory) to the spring. What I found stopped me dead in my tracks...
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| The spring in winter |
The spring feeds into the current river which will be running to your left as you walk out to the spring. Looking across the water, you'll see an old building. It used to be a tuberculosis hospital. Patients would come there hoping the spring water would heal them. Believe it or not, this was a common belief at the time. Needless to say, the building has long since been decommissioned.
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| A shot from above the spring cave |
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| This will be your first view of the spring |
I was not content to sit back and look at this mysterious building from the other side of the spring, so I back tracked to the cliff wall that you can see the spring flowing out of. If you walk back maybe 200 meters from the edge of the spring along the cliff wall you will see a very thin trail that leads up over the cliff and to the other side of the spring. Once there, it is possible to climb in to the building and explore a little bit:
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| Interior of the old hospital |
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| Cave entrance |
As you can see by the picture on the right, if you make it to the base of the building, there is an old cave opening. The cave does not go very far back (maybe 20 feet?) before it hits spring water and becomes impassable without swimming - which I would not advise.
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| Looking back on the entrance of the cave |
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| Couldn't tell how far back the spring water stretched... |
Below is a link to the website covering a history of the spring and the hospital. It also includes brief directions to the spring:
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