Stagecoach (or Manby) Hot Springs

Date of Adventure: December 19 and 24, 2025

This is a combination of 2 trips I took to Taos partly to get out of Dodge and partly to scope out access to Stagecoach Hot Springs. Online I had seen that the old route we used to take into the hot springs is now closed because the access is a private road and the owners have closed it off. The online information says that you can hike in along the Rio and that it's a pretty rough hike so I decided to check it out. On the first trip, on the 19th, I got a late start but decided to go anyway and just see what it’s really like.

I don't know how many times I've driven up and down the Rio Grande gorge between Española and Taos. But it's got to be more than 30. Sometimes you forget just how beautiful and how interesting some of these areas are. So, I decided to take a little bit of time and take a few pictures and just enjoy the trip.

There’s the low, wooden bridge across the Rio that has always intrigued me. I remember rafting under it and at least once, in high water, having to portage around it. And the buildings on the other side. Who lives here? The bridge is clearly closed off and impassable.

When I got out on the llano north of Taos, kind of above Arroyo Hondo, this was the sign on the dirt road that we used to take. I actually drove down the road, maybe a half a mile, and there were no gates or anything to stop vehicles but I decided that I didn't want to cause trouble and just turned around and drove down to the John Dunn bridge.

The fact that they had closed off the road was a little bit surprising to me because for many years I've come out here and hiked down to the hot springs. Early on there were only a few random houses out in this area. Most of them look kind of like this one in the photo.

I think that property out here was really cheap and most of the people who were living out here were sort of ex hippie, counterculture types who had built unusual houses, mostly solar. The density was low and it didn't seem like the culture was the type to close things off, but who knows. Maybe the hot springs became so popular that the traffic and trash forced closing the road.

It was a beautiful afternoon. A few cars parked at the bridge.

Here’s the sign at the trailhead for the trail along the edge of the river. Doesn’t look too inviting!! It was already late in the afternoon so I knew I wasn't going to try to hike all the way out to the hot springs but I thought I'd just hike a little ways to see what the trail is like. And this is what the trail looked like: Just a lot of rock scrambling.

As the sun was starting to set I decided to head for home. Here's the road as it comes down to the John Dunn bridge, a little snow but still in pretty good shape.

The sunset and clouds in the early evening as heading back into Taos were truly spectacular!

Since I hadn't made it out to the hot springs on my first trip, I decided to take another shot at it by getting an earlier start. So on Christmas Eve I left home earlier and managed to get to the John Dunn bridge a little bit after noon. There were a lot of cars and people including fishermen and obviously a lot of people going to Black Rock Hot Springs. It took me a little while to get my shit together and get on the trail. I was hiking at around 1:00 PM. This trail is really, really rough. It's mostly rock scrambling like the next picture with some muddy trail like the one after that.

Hiking along the trail I could see everybody at Black Rock Hot Springs on the other side of the Rio. There must have been a dozen people for a hot spring that comfortably holds four.

After about an hour and 45 minutes of hiking and scrambling I made it to the Stagecoach ruins

If you look across the river you can actually see remnants of of the old stagecoach road that came down the gorge on the north side. In this photo look towards the top and you can see the stacked rocks that made up the retaining wall supporting the road.

It's pretty hard to photograph it but in person you can actually see the switchbacks as the road made its way up the Canyon wall. And looking to the northwest, up river, you can see the present day dirt road switchbacking as it goes up the canyon on the other side of the John Dunn bridge.

This trip to Manby Hot Springs was really interesting and really valuable for me. There was a guy with his family and he knew quite a bit of the history and I learned a lot from him. I've tried to fill in some of the details with online research so here is part of what I understand about the history of Manby Hot Springs. Arthur Manby was a Brit who came to Taos in his 20s. He was apparently quite intelligent and knowledgeable about architectural design but also a scoundrel, con man, and crook. In short, he managed to get a lot of investors through scam proposals. He managed to acquire the majority of the Martinez Land Grant, north of Taos. His plan was to build a resort on the hot springs at the river and a hotel and stagecoach line, competing with John Dunn’s stagecoach and hotel. Only a small part of that was accomplished before he got into serious financial trouble. Apparently, there were over 30 lawsuits filed against him. In any case he lost ownership to his start of the resort at the hot springs on the Rio. And it is the ruins of that resort that make up the present day Manby (or Stagecoach) Hot Springs area. There's a huge amount of Taos history including Manby, John Dunn, and Doc Martin that includes these hot springs. Manby was found decapitated in his home, near the Plaza. A, still, unsolved mystery. But I'll leave the recounting of that history to my buddy Sarah Jane to include in her videos after we visit in February. See Wonderhussy Adventures.

The other thing that I learned from talking to people in the hot springs is that there is an alternate road and parking area that is very close to the trail down from the top of the gorge. The trail down that we used to take. I'm not going to reveal the details but hopefully I’ll check it out in the next week or so and post another blog about it. This should make it much easier for Sarah Jane and I to visit the springs in February.

Anyway, these springs are very pleasant but not that hot there are basically 3 pools. The next two photos show the 2 cooler ones.

I had my infrared thermometer with me, these measure about 82 to 84°. That’s great in the summertime but not so great midwinter. The hot pool is probably in the upper 90s. This picture shows part of that one. I had to be a little careful taking pictures because there were several people in and out of the pool and not all of them were completely clothed.

Overall, this was a really great visit to the pools. The hike in and back out was a bitch. I'll say more below but the weather was great the hot water felt wonderful I met and talked to a number of really interesting very, very friendly people. That made it well worth the difficult hike.

Hot spring hikes in the afternoon are a problem for me because there's always the temptation to just sit in the hot spring forever. Pretty soon the sun starts to go down. Although physically kind of hard, the hike out was just so beautiful and peaceful.

I didn't get to these springs until about 3:00 PM and only got out around 4:00 PM. This was Christmas Eve And sunset was right about 5:00 PM in Taos. Down in the gorge it gets dark pretty fast. Hiking out I could really feel how tired my legs were getting from climbing over and around all the rocks. I made it to the end of the trail as it was almost dark, back to my truck a few minutes after 6:00 PM in near total darkness.

In spite of the difficulty of the hike it was decidedly it, the exercise was really valuable. In fact the biggest problem was that there was nothing open at 6:30 to 7:00 PM in Taos on Christmas Eve so nowhere to stop for dinner.

I’ll certainly make another trip to look for the alternate route to the trailhead. The trail we used in the past just comes down the canyon wall from almost right above the springs. It’s the remnants of the old stagecoach road on the southeast side of the river.

San Antonio (Trip 2)

Date of Adventure: November 16, 2025

I've been pretty lax about keeping up with blogging various trips and things that seem a little bit more important. So today I'm going to try to catch up.

On November 16th I took another trip to San Antonio Hot Springs to try to check out some of the alternate trails. On Gaia GPS there's a trail that descends from Forest Rd. 144 to Forest Rd. 376 IE the main road. Right close to the trail up to the Hot Springs. On the maps it looked pretty steep so I decided I'd try and find it. And I wanted to check out what the springs look like now since I haven't been there for probably 10 years or more.

So, I drove out kind of early in the day and didn't make many stops along the way. But I thought I'd throw in this picture of one of the radio telescopes that's part of the Very Large Baseline Array ( VLBA ).

Driving out route 4 from Los Alamos you have to make a right hand turn onto State Route 126 At La Cueva. I think that there are 3 or 4 different La Cuevas in New Mexico so you might not find this one on a map. Here's the store that's been there forever although it's changed hands a few times.

About four or five miles out of La Cueva you come to the right hand turn onto Forest Road 376 which is the main road into the Hot Springs. T he road is in pretty good shape I would be able to make it in a standard 2 WD vehicle although having some high clearance is nice. I don’t think you’d need 4 WD except in the winter time. Maybe it'll get nasty in the spring.

When I got to the end of the road, that’s where there's a gate across 376 and a parking area before hiking the last half mile or so to the trail up to the springs. There were a boatload of cars. Might have been as many as 20! So I knew the springs were going to be pretty busy although some of the cars were fishermen, fly fishing along the Creek.

I've run into people a couple of times who were a little bit lost about getting to the Hot Springs. All you have to do is keep your eye on San Antonio Creek and look for this bridge. Then There are several alternate trails to hike up the hillside to the springs just keep going uphill.

Maybe a quarter mile past the bridge on the main road ( which at this point is really more of a trail because it's been abandoned for a very long time ) I found the trail I was looking for that comes down from Forest Rd. 144. It's hard to tell in this picture but it's pretty steep. I don't think I'd want to do it on snowshoes and probably on foot, only when I felt pretty strong. On the maps it's actually marked as a mountain bike trail.

Hiking up the trail to the springs there are a couple of abandoned buildings. Over the years and the many times I've hiked into these Hot Springs I have heard from people that these buildings were built by the youth conservation corps back in the 30s or 40s. I can’t verify the rumors. The very first time I hiked into San Antonio Springs, back about 1981, I actually met a young woman on the trail who was living in one of the cabins and doing some forest survey work. I don't remember many of the details but she tried to discourage me from even going to the springs. Over the years, access to the springs has been made illegal and reopened. It’s clearly OK now.

As expected there was a big crowd of people in the springs and everybody was wearing bathing suits. I kind of walked around and then just decided to hike on out and check out a few other things of interest.

I thought I'd throw in this picture of an abandoned car it was on Forest Rd. 376. Not something that you see a lot of. Sometimes these abandoned cars make me wonder what the hell happened and why somebody left their car and how they got out from that point.

The other thing that I really wanted to check out while I was in the area was Spence Hot Springs. In the old days I really used to like this hot spring it's pretty easy to get to and was very hot and not to busy. But interestingly Sarah Jane in one of her videos from 2018 said that these springs were less than ideal. Check her video out!! So I really wanted to go and check it out. First of all, the old dirt parking lot has now been upgraded to a pretty limited parking area and every parking place was taken when I got there.

The trail has been seriously upgraded at least until you get across the Creek. It used to be just a funky dirt trail and in the winter time could get kind of slippery.

The springs were pretty crowded and it was just kind of a weird atmosphere. I did have my infrared thermometer with me and clandestinely measured the temperature it was about 82°. That's a lot colder than it used to be and it looked like the source had been semi plugged up.

Well, that was it for me for the trip. Since I've been a little disappointed with Los Ojos in Jemez springs on my last trip, I decided to stop in Los Alamos for dinner. I stopped at the Pajarito Brew Pub and it was kind of disappointing as well. I guess it's time to search out someplace in Jemez Springs or even in Los Alamos that's worthy of a stop.