Bathers flock to warm paradise
Photos by Keith Allen
Story by Keith Rimov
Tucked into a ravine near the
McKenzie River’s South Fork,
the four tiered pools of the
Cougar Hot Springs warms
crowds of bathers.
Each bather seems to think
that the simmering,
sulphur-smelling water that
sends steam rising through the
trees overhead, is a well-kept
secret
“We don’t mind if you take
pictures,’’ one bather says as he
stretches out in the pool closest
to the hot spring, “but promise
not to print a map.”
Signs placed by the U S. Fo
rest Service directing hikers to
the spring have been torn down
or defaced. Queries from cur
ious visitors are met with cryptic
answers from locals.
“You'll know you're there
when you see a bunch of naked
people,” grunted a man in a
pickup parked above Cougar
Dam.
When people come to the
spring, they leave their modesty
in the city. “There’s nothing
better to do than sit around in a
hot pool with a bunch of naked
people," says a man wading in
the shallow water.
In the top pool a man and
woman go through a rebirth
session; a couple from Montana
in the second pool play with
their baby.
Bathers graduate from one
pool to the next, since the lower
pools are not as warm as those
closer to the spring. “Usually
you can’t stay in the top pool for
more than five minutes or you’ll
burn . . . it’s on the cool side
today,” says a woman standing
washing in the icy stream next
to the pool.
People shift to the higher
pools as new bathers arrive.
One student slips into the water
saying, “I’m sure glad these
aren’t any closer to Eugene or
we would have to pay to get in."