May 31, 2019
Day 3: Rest day in Pagosa Springs
After feeling good last night I felt surprisingly tired in the morning. Good thing it's a rest day. I had a big breakfast at the Rose cafe, no lunch, then a big blackened catfish dinner at The Lost Cajun.
Pagosa Springs has a one-sided downtown. All the buildings are on the north side of Main street. The river is on the south side. The downtown buildings all have free geothermal heat. The City of Pagosa Springs owns most of the hot water. The only privately owned well is at Healing Waters.
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It was a lazy day overall. I wandered around the riverwalk area in the morning and afternoon. It's only about half a mile long, with 3 pedestrian bridges and one road bridge across the river. Downtown is on the north side of the river. The hot spring resorts are on the south side.
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I walked the downtown area quite a bit and found the old Catholic church squeezed into a small lot.
I also spotted some geothermally heated greenhouses. Interesting geodesic domes, with a small amphitheater overlooking the river.
Much of the riverfront in Pagosa Springs is public parks. It's beautiful and welcoming to visitors. The population is only 1940 but it seems bigger.
The San Juan river looks great. Filled to the banks with snow melt right now, moving very quickly. It's an exciting river for rafting at the moment.
Today had beautiful weather. Mostly sunny all day, even in the afternoon. High of 71F (22C). It almost felt like summer. Much warmer than the last several days. Everybody seemed to appreciate the weather, not take it for granted.
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Late in the afternoon I had fun watching people paddling the San Juan river. Several kayakers stopped to play in the big wave in front of The Springs.
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In the evening I did 3 rounds of steam sauna and cool down. After 10 PM I went back to the Hippie Dip but found that the pool was only 74F (23C) with the river overflowing the pool. The river rose several inches since last night because of the warm sunny weather.
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In the last few days I corresponded with Kelly Iniguez about the possibility of ending the tour by crossing the Sangre de Cristo mountains on the Hayden Pass 4WD road. I would be there on June 17. I called Cutty's Resort which is on the Hayden Pass road. They said the road is likely to still have deep snow on June 17. So I resigned myself to end the tour per my original plan which puts me on busy US 50 for half a day. In a normal year I'm sure Hayden Pass would be passable on June 17.
My room at Healing Waters has no fridge, microwave, or breakfast. But the location is excellent, walking distance to everything in the downtown area.
I had never been to Pagosa Springs before. I really like it and think it's a great destination to take a rest day thanks to the charming downtown, beautiful river, mountain views, and hot springs.
Distance: 0 mi. (but I walked several miles)
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