An overnight adventure to the Arizona Hot Springs/ Lake Mead National Recreation Area

My legs are SORE.

I spent this past weekend hiking out to the Arizona Hot Springs — a little gem located near the bank of the Colorado River where it straddles the Arizona/ Nevada state line in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area — with several of my Flagstaff friends for an overnight camping trip.

Ryan told me that I am not allowed to call this a backpacking trip because it doesn’t meet his very, very strict standards for what he considers to be backpacking… but, whatever. This was the first time I packed all my camping gear in a large backpack and hiked in to stay the night somewhere several miles off a trailhead, so I’m going to call it backpacking.

We parked at the Arizona Hot Spring Trailhead and then took the White Rock Canyon Trail down to the Colorado River.

There are a few ways to get to the hot springs, but if you’re looking to camp overnight, definitely take White Rock Canyon Trail, which bypasses the hot springs and takes you down to the bank of the Colorado river and into a flat canyon for camping. If you take the Hot Spring Canyon Trail, you’ll end up DIRECTLY at the hot springs… but then you’ll have to hike through them (with all your gear) and down a 20-foot ladder to get to camp.

It was an ideal first “backpacking” (sorry, Ryan) trip for several reasons. The trail is in a somewhat-developed recreation area, and even though there’s no cell service, the trail is heavily-trafficked and easy to follow. It’s a simple out-and-back trail: 3.5 miles there and 3.5 miles back for 7 total miles with about 1,000 feet of elevation gain, which is mostly on the hike out. There are vault toilets located near the camping area on the bank of the Colorado River as well, and there were several other people camping in the canyon.

The trail is through a wash, so it’s a lot of small rocks and sand. There’s a small amount of scrambling but nothing severe at all.

Ryan and I got to the trailhead Saturday early afternoon, and then hiked in with Yukon to meet our friends.

Dogs are allowed on the trails, but I wouldn’t recommend bringing one unless you have someone in your group who’s willing to forgo the hot springs so they can stay back and dogsit. Ryan was pretty adamant about bringing Yukon and had zero interest in the hot springs, citing fears of brain-eating amoeba, so we were OK.

Lauren, Ben and Andrew got down to the river bank fairly early and snagged us a spot a little bit of the way up and out of the canyon, away from most of the other campers.

Ryan and I met up with everyone, set up our tent and then ate dinner and drank boxed wine and whisky decanted into plastic water bottles.

Once it got dark, everyone (minus Ryan and Yukon) headed into the hot springs.

I don’t have any photos because I didn’t want to carry my brand new phone into the hot springs, and also, it was pitch black so photos wouldn’t have worked anyway, so you’ll just have to google photos of “Arizona Hot Springs” and take my word for it: This place was cool!

There were probably about 30 other people in the actual hot springs with us. The hot springs are located in a slot canyon that’s been sandbagged off to create three different levels- each one getting hotter as you get closer to the water source.

The water is the perfect height to sit in. It was crystal clear (as far as I could see with my headlamp) and so warm! We gradually made our way up to the highest level, which is about 110 degrees.

The hot springs were such a fun vibe. Everyone had a headlamp stuck to their forehead, and a few people brought candles, glow sticks and floating lanterns.

Zero douchebags with Bluetooth speakers, too. Win!

Please know, if you go, you will likely encounter some fully nude folks at the hot springs.

After about an hour, we made our way back to camp where we talked around our campfire (our friends hiked in firewood) until about 11 p.m.

We slept in until about 8 a.m. on Sunday, then woke up for breakfast before we packed everything up to hike out.

Our hike out was rough, mainly because Yukon decided no, he did not want to hike.

Ryan had to pick him up and carry him the 3.5 miles out.

Giant baby*.

*I assure you – we take good care of Yukon. He was fine. He was not hot (it was 50 degrees and most of the trail was shaded), he had plenty of water and he was not injured or sick. He’s just a big drama queen. He miraculously made a full recovery the second we got to the brewery after the hike and he was completely able to scamper around Rickety Cricket scarfing down stray fries on the floor.

Once we finished the hike, we waited for everyone to check in (Ben actually kayaked in instead of hiking, so we didn’t all hike in/out together) and then we drove our three separate vehicles back to Flagstaff. We stopped at Rickety Cricket in Kingman for a late lunch/early dinner of pizza and beer, and Ryan and I stopped to pick up takeout at our favorite Indian restaurant, Punjabi Dhaba, on the way home as well.

My legs are so sore and my hips are bruised, but I had so much freaking fun. I’m lucky to have awesome friends who are always down for adventures like this.