It turned out the group meeting us when we arrived at Serpentine Hot Springs included our pilot’s wife and kids. By necessity, due to the increasingly low cloud cover, before our seats on the plane had a chance to cool, as soon as the pilot’s family and their gear were onboard, they were off, heading back to Kotzebue. It was then we learned that the remaining dozen people, four adults and eight middle-school youth, were due to fly out tomorrow after a week-long “Culture Camp.”
According to the National Park Service (NPS) website, Serpentine Hot Springs has been described as a “…little oasis in a field of green, surrounded by a fence of granite,’” and as “…a treasure that has been utilized for millennia and continues to service both traditional and recreational purposes.” After deplaning, it was obvious that both of these statements were accurate descriptors of this place.
The surrounding area was lush with green vegetation. Granite “tors” rose up above the greenery opposite the camp and adjacent to the airstrip. Looking toward and beyond the camp, additional tors were visible among the low clouds where we had flown just minutes before. It was indeed, quite the contrast to the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, where we had just spent three days.
Here at the hot springs, NPS provides visitors with basic amenities, including a wood-frame bunkhouse, bathhouse, and outhouse, all of which are used on a first-come, first-served basis. Until we arrived, we had no way of knowing if other people would be at the hot springs. We assumed we would be sleeping in our tents.
Participants in the Culture Camp were from Shismaref, a small Alaska Native village on a barrier island about 50 air miles from the hot springs.The leaders of the Culture Camp (Stanley and Kara) were most gracious. They generously offered our group one of the two bunkhouse rooms and also “private” use of the bathhouse once we were settled in. After tent camping in Kobuk Valley National Park, John, Isabel, Sara, and I appreciated all of these rudimentary pleasures. That included use of the outhouse, which, when the door was open, provided a great view of some of the surrounding landscape as well as much-welcomed protection from white socks and mosquitoes.
Gathering our gear, we eagerly headed to the bunkhouse to check it out. Reminiscent of my trip to see grizzlies at the McNeil River State Game Refuge and Sanctuary, I happily piled my belongings into a wheelbarrel for the short trip. The walk took us down a gravel path surrounded by shoulder-high vegetation and onto a wooden plank walkway, which crossed a small stream, and connected to another boardwalk running from the bathhouse across the front of the bunkhouse.
Access into the bunkhouse was provided by a single door, which opened into a middle, multi-purpose room that included everything from cleaning supplies to information about Bering Land Bridge National Preserve. A single door on either side of the middle room, provided access to the two bunk rooms on each end. Those rooms included a picnic table, benches, cots with metal springs covered with plywood, hooks for hanging clothes, a stove, and various leftover supplies. They also included lots of graffiti on the walls and ceilings.
Upon opening the door to the middle room, we were greeted by a dozen or more freshly-cut chunks of caribou meat; its bright red color contrasting with the blue-green tarp upon which it lay. We learned that an important part of the camp was teaching hunting skills to the youth as well as how to dress any carcasses and then preserve the meat.
Barbra, Matt, and Melissa decided to set up tents on the edge of the airstrip. The rest of us were happy to claim spots inside the bunkhouse. While it was a far cry from the Ritz Hotel, sleeping here was a much more appealing option–especially for John, Isabel, Sara, and me–than setting up our tents, which were still wet and sandy from this morning’s rain in Kobuk Valley National Park.
After a late dinner, prepared and eaten on the picnic table in our bunk room, John, Isabel, and I made a beeline for the bathhouse. Having long anticipated this luxury, we had swimming suits and camp towels in hand. On the way to the bathhouse, we took note of a sign, attached to a protective railing along the edge of the hot springs, warning visitors to stay out of the actual hot springs, since the water temperature ranged from 140 to 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Having experienced in the late 1980s, third-degree burns and subsequent skin grafts on my ankles, being parboiled in Serpentine Hot Springs was not something I wanted (or needed) to experience.
Inside the bathhouse, there were two small, basic changing stalls. The main room included benches on two sides, several windows to let in light, recycled tire-link mats over part of the slippery wooden floor, and wooden steps down into a redwood-lined soaking tub. Both cold water from the creek and hot water from the hot springs, were piped directly into the tub.
Carefully descending the steps, while holding the railing, the hot water began working its magic on our bodies. Soaking neck deep in the tub was pure heaven. The minerals in the water made our skin feel soft and smooth as a baby’s bottom. Miraculously, it eliminated not only the redness, but also the itching, of my many white socks bites. That was an unanticipated gift; and just what I needed to relax at the end of the day before crawling, contentedly, into my sleeping bag at 10:30 p.m. We were still pinching ourselves over the fact that we were actually at Serpentine Hot Springs.
After we left the bathhouse, the kids from the Culture Camp took their turn. They were up until at least 1:00 a.m. the next morning, making the most of what was supposed to be their last night at camp. It was another reminder that while we were in a remote area of Alaska, we were not alone.