Night Sky: 5/5
Long drives often lead to 1 of 2 things: a complete bummer or the coolest thing ever. Willow Creek Hot Springs was the latter for us. Let’s get the worst part out of the way – to get to this spring we had to traverse 27 miles on washboard roads. Thankfully our van is a beast and handled them decently well. We were able to cruise at 30-50 mph the entire way so it only took us 45 minutes or so to make the journey. The spring was worth every rumble. It was completely out in the middle of nowhere. There was not another soul in sight (other than the 1 or 2 people intentionally looking for the spring). The nearest city was over 100 miles away so the night sky was gorgeous (5 shooting stars and a starlink satelite show). The waters were perfectly warm(~100 degrees), relatively clean, and the camping was everything we could had wished for; we basically camped with our door opening up to the waters. Bonus was there was a pretty decent BLM vault toilet here as well!
We loved this spot so much we extended our stay and hung out there for 2.5 days and 2 nights. During our stay, we dipped and hiked the area. We met another van lifer who had a pretty wild and fun story. We relaxed, had some great beverages, maybe slipped a gummy, played games, did crosswords, soaked some more, and then some more.
Willow Creek takes the cake for my favorite spring so far. I loved this zone and will return to it if I’m every 100 miles from it again. 10/10 recommend!
