“If you were to hike nearly nine miles into a wilderness area, paralleling a creek through alpine meadows and woods, you might expect to find solitude. But that’s not the case at Conundrum Hot Springs, an extremely popular area of natural pools at an elevation of over 11,000 feet with views of surrounding peaks in White River National Forest. Dozens — and on busy weekends, sometimes hundreds — of overnight visitors hike in. Some even carry speakers and cases of beer. “It’ll be like you’ve gone to someone’s backyard for a pool party,” Karen Schroyer, Aspen-Sopris district ranger, says.”
One can read the rest of this article here: http://www.hcn.org/articles/recreation-the-conundrum-of-loved-to-death-wilderness?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email
Very little is respected or safe from the adoring public. So unfortunate that many feel entitled to do what they want without regard for anything else.
I’ve spent some time at Conundrum and it’s a mess, a little more extreme than Sykes but not too different. Conundrum has been in the news a lot over the past decade, you can’t forget the frozen cows episode:
yeah, about that possible delay in opening the bridge? yes please. how about a few more years of this blissful quietude?
This really brings up the question whether we can be designated as civilized. Some of ‘us’ are most definitely not deserving of that label. It’s pretty disgusting.
The world population is still growing and people want to do cool stuff. I don’t have any answers. We must enjoy what we’ve got. Try to be respectful of others and nature.
So those yahoos were upset to “have to sleep in the snow”, so went “to town and got ‘revenge’ burgers”???? Society has lost it. It really has.
Kate,
Harvey would have wiped #BigSur off the map.
Hi Kate, I used to go to this Spring back in the early ’70’s. We’d usually go when at least one snow system had blown through…it was COLD…but we were young and “backpacker tough”. we ALWAYS had the entire area to ourselves. It was like being extras in Jeremiah Johnson. I went to college in Colo Sprngs so the trip wasnt too bad…even in a Toyota Land Cruiser that had manual hubs and very few creature comforts… but was close to perfect when the going got tough! Back then, Aspen was still “just Aspen”…gentrification hadn’t overrun the area and, like most things back then, things were just more basic etc… hope all is well. Best, Howard
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