Goldmyer Hot Springs

In North Bend, just past the truck stop, we turned onto Middle Fork Road, toward Goldmyer Hotsprings. After ten miles, the pavement ended, and a pock-marked road, with puddles tire-deep, that would thud and zigzag the jeep for an hour, began. We drove passed hemlocks tangled in electric, velvet moss. We switchbacked around the emerald Snoqualmie River, which gushed and slipped down the mountain we climbed. (The river, which we would later have to cross on foot.)

Beth, who twice a week from Seattle coordinates reservations for the hotsprings, had sent directions that read: "About 5 1/2 miles later you'll go across another single-lane cement bridge, this time you'll see a waterfall on your left as you cross the bridge. The snow will bulk up here." It had been raining in Seattle when we left. Here, it snowed. Pines and Cedars heavy with snow narrowed the sky. We stopped and put on our tire chains. We had returned to winter.

"About 4 1/4 miles later look for a wide place in the road. The wide place has a brown and white sign nailed to a tree; it talks about trout angling (“barbless hook”), and then this wide place also has a second little narrow road that goes down to the right. When you find this place that has all 3, park, put on the snow shoes, go down the little spur to the right, and it isn’t very long, it will wind us around a little bit, but you'll end up on a small, snowy beach on the river. That is where folks walk through. Once you get to the far side then you need to use the trail that will lead you directly away from the river (perpindicular to the river). An easy 1/4 mile hike up will take you to the caretaker’s cabin. They’ll be expecting you."

For 2 miles, the jeep rode the snow bank between old, disappearing tire tracks. A downed tree blocked the last 2 1/4 miles. We parked, put on our snowshoes, and began hiking. Half an hour later, we reached the place with all three: the trail, the brown and white fishing sign, and the spur shooting off to the right. The trail wound us down to the river, perfectly clear and soft-green in color, like eyes. Somehow, it reminded me of summer. Here the river gurgled, and though it lacked the quickness and brute force of the sections we had driven past, it still hurried on with such great haste that I began to worry that it would rush by without the courtesy or thought of slowing down for me. I did not want to cross it. The day before, on a trip to REI for a completely different errand, I had bee-lined for the first salesman I saw in the fishing department; But he turned me away because REI does not carry rubber waders. Beth told me she rolls up her pants to her privates, and then rolls them back down again when she gets across. Carli had walked across in her underwear the weekend before. Though the water continued to remind me of summer, not crossing seemed intuitive.

Goldmyer has a reputation for being the most beautiful hotsprings in North America, if not the world. Not like the hotsprings we visited in Idaho in the middle of the night, lost on our trip across the country. Two luke-warm swimming pool-sized cement rectangles, the walls and bottom of which were painted cerulean for the school children who visit and do not like nature. The caretaker of those hotsprings had told us that on our tour of the facility, which consisted of a game room, a pool hall, a cafeteria, and a scrawny lawn on which to pitch your tent. We had decided to drive on and find another place to sleep.

We took off our snowhoes, our soggy cold boots and our pants, and untied our old tennis shoes from our packs and put them on. Alfred crossed first. He cussed once and went the rest of the way gracefully. I stepped in and shrieked. The water wasn't even cold; it was sheer pain. The pretty, clear, gurgling, green bit my legs and gave me tunnel vision. I did not realize that I had stopped moving until I noticed that Alfred was back in the water, the water that seemed to want to take me with it, back down the mountain. He ushered me across. "Keep moving. Good. Step now," he coached. When we got out, my legs stung for a minute before every vessel in my body clamped shut, locking in any heat that had not escaped down river. Then I was warm. Onto the hotsprings.