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.