De Anza Springs visit and day trip report

[jaybirdsen]

 I am way behind on trip reporting.  Here is one from last fall. Sorry for the delay.

Went out to De Anza Springs Sunday after Thanksgiving.  Weather looked like the last good day for a while. Desert dry and 84 with some clouds. The weather didn't disappoint though my skin thermometer read 85 and no clouds to be seen. Just a beautiful blue bird day.

I was looking for a particular trail head that I had stumbled upon on a warm June day a while ago.  The resort trail map online showed the squaw mountain trail starting on the west end of the resort yet from my memory from June I could have sworn it was on the east side.

It was a warm June day and the place was packed with a booze fighters MC music event.  Boots and leather fully clothed bikers down to the wallet with the chain hooked to a denim pant loop and then the nude residents walking around among them.  Quite a scene in opposite lifestyles.  Any way it was a warm semi cloudy muggy day and I was in search of another trail leading from the east side when I stumbled on the Squaw mountain trail head.  It looked like an interesting trail and I bookmarked it in my mind for a later hike. My main mission that day was to pick up a hiking kilt that I'd ordered from a couple of residents who have a business in town called the Love Shack. I wrote part one of a hike with them a while back so I need to sit down and finish that report as well to tie everything together.

Here more than a year later I decided on this day to find the Squaw Mountain trail and go for a hike. I started around the east side of the resort scouring the perimeter yet found no trail until reaching the a trailhead for the popular Temple mountain trail.  I hiked up the trail a while just exploring and decided to head back and get to the bottom of the location of the squaw mountain trail.
The weather was beautiful not too hot and I had already drank a lot from my water pack so on my way to the west side I stopped by my truck and stowed my water so as to enjoy a completely net free hike. Just hat and sandals.  Someone on here had asked for some pictures of the area so I attached my phone to my walking stick just in case I spotted picture opportunity.  Unfortunately when I tried to attach the photos to my report it did not work. Sorry I'll have to do more study on that.

When I drove into the place earlier I passed near the entrance to Carrizo Gorge which is a nice place to hike with railroad tracks and trestles heading several miles up the gorge. There were many cars parked near the entrance to the trail which is on resort property.  The gorge itself is popular with mountain bike groups who leave a shuttle vehicle at the south end of the gorge and then drive to the north end and bike down the gorge. I think it is an overnight trip so Thanksgiving weekend would be a great time to do it and judging be all the cars many people agreed.  There was also a group of 15-20 textile bikers camping in one of the campsites near the office.  When I was at my truck I thought momentarily of bagging my search for the trail and just hiking in the gorge yet immediately disregarded the idea as I didn't want to deal with nude encounters with clothed mountain bikers returning to their cars and strung out over God's creation in the gorge.  I was looking for a solo mindful and meditative nude hike in nature and mainly undisturbed. 

The thought did occur to me of the thread on here about encountering others while hiking nude. The Sunday after Thanksgiving would be a great place to explore that situation were one so inclined as that particular Sunday afternoon is filled with mountain bikers filtering into the resort all afternoon.  They probably don't expect to see nude hikers off the res yet their pickup cars on parked on the edge of a c/o resort so they have to be somewhat accepting of us.  I've hiked nude with friends and alone in the gorge many times and never bothered to bring a net.  In fact I never take one on any hikes heading into the desert from the resort. Clothes always left in the truck.

Seeking solitude I continued walking the resort perimeter from east then north and finally west and located the trail head to Squaw Mountain right where the resort's hiking web site map showed it to be.  I puzzled a bit as to how I could have gotten things so screwed up in my memory and figured it must have been the heat , loud music and all the motorcycle noise in this usually quiet  place that got me confused.

The trail was beautiful and well maintained with rocks bordering each side. It ascended into the hills and intersected with another trail that ran north or south to the Carrizo gorge.
A beautiful day for a nude hike for sure. I was going to hike out into the back country yet I had wasted so much time looking for the trail that I just stayed to the local hillsides exploring the trail system east and west and north and south.

After the hike I went to soak in the hot tub which was already occupied by a couple of old bronze statues sitting silently pondering nothing in particular just passing the time. I asked permission to join them just to make sure they were alive and was welcomed in with a half wave by one of them.  The other one had a gin or vodka something in a plastic cup with a slice of lime. The timer on the hot tub had elapsed so they were sitting still in a tub of calm hot water.  Before entering I asked if they'd like me to turn the timer back on.
Gin and something said nothing yet indicated with a gesture he didn't care one way or the other. The fellow who waved me in likewise silently bade me to turn on the timer so I did.

The three of us sat there in silence for 10 or 15 minutes with the only noise coming from a volleyball game in the indoor pool a few steps away.  It was a wonderful fall afternoon for sitting in a hot tub watching for the occasional leaf to fall from a tree. The timer eventually turned off again and the silent waver mentioned to gin and something that the clock on the wall had been the same time for the last 3 days.  Gin and something made a funny face and shook the ice in his drink in a who cares manner and I got the impression it was his job to maintain the hot tub area. That is about as hot as the kitchen gets at De Anza  and grinning to myself I bade them good afternoon as I left to their silent waves good bye.

Bottom line any day at De Anza is a good day for hiking free and the clear dry warm days of autumn are some of the best.

[jbeegoode]

This is such a rendering of typical De Anza wanderings set in a unique set of actives that I could visualize every step of the way. You brought it home to me. I love that place.

What are booze fighters? AA biker pack? AND was that live music?
Jbee

[jaybirdsen]

Thanks JB.  It is a very unique place and about as laid back as it can get.

I think the Booze Fighters have an event there every year.  I think some actually live there though they may not be nudists or at least not on that day. I saw a few bikes ride to the residences that day.
They are definitely not AA.  I think they are described as a drinking club with a motorcycle problem.  Started in the 40's. An old club not sure how checkered their past is.

I think there was at least one band playing and a DJ between breaks.  That is my very vague memory anyway.  It was a hot cloudy muggy day in an area normally of blue sky and sunshine so the whole thing was a little surreal.  Surreal is not exactly strange to De Anza though is it JB.

[nuduke]

Nice report, Jaybirdsen
Yes!  Do the research on attaching pictures!  It's not easy.  I myself have had endless trouble trying to attach a picture that doesn't act as a link through to my photo repository.  I don't want everyone dabbling in my albums!  Embedding is the route to go.  This works for me sometimes and not others.  Can't think why.  I've tried putting my pictures on flickr but either the pictures link through to my flickr site or after adjusting the privacy settings they are so private that nobody can see them!  If I post a picture nowadays it's an embed from a MS Onedrive repository of pictures.


John

[jbeegoode]

Dang, I just do what it says and use the photos in a file on my computer.
Jbee

[jaybirdsen]

You know they were on my phone and I emailed them to me so I could copy on my pc.  I thought I created a file yet maybe I just tried to copy from the email.
I'll try that next time I go.

[John P]

I've got storing and posting photos down to a routine now, to the point where I've stopped thinking about how it's working.

Pictures go on my account on Imgur, and I use a desktop app called ShareX to put them there as a drag-and-drop operation. Then a reference to a picture with an initial thumbnail is:

Code: [Select]

[url=full_image_address][img]thumbnail_address[/img][/url]

Imgur makes this very easy, because they let you show one of your pictures in thumbnail form just by using the same name with a 't' added before the ".jpg" part of the URL.

[jaybirdsen]

Thanks.