A mountain taxi brought us to the trailhead by 8:30. We hiked up Conundrum Creek to Conundrum Hot Springs, arriving by 2:30.
(Dogs met: a Vizsla mix that looked like a hound, named Muddy, and a half-blind heeler, Sammy. Another reason Aspen is great: dogs everywhere, in the stores and on the allowed trails.)
Sunshine and the magical exhalation of redolent trees had masked my illness the day before. After nine miles and 3,000 feet of elevation gain with 40 pounds on my back--despite more sunshine, aspen, and blue spruce--I knew I was sick. Damn.
We set up camp with our minimalist gear and sprinted for the springs.
For hot springs, Conundrum Hot Springs is neither very hot nor very springy. The main pool is merely a bermed area of creek, maybe two feet deep. Whatever it may lack in depth and heat, however, is far surpassed by its surroundings and more surroundings. Happily, the few people there during our stay knew better than to risk their health with bathing suits--though I'm just as glad that no cameras appeared either.
I was sick indeed if springs, nudey-dipping, scenery, and squeaking pikas didn't make me feel better. On the way up Conundrum Creek, we'd even seen a snowshoe hare, all brown except its gigantic white feet, and the creek and valley were spectacular, and we were seriously backpacking because here we had definitive proof of the age-old question of whether the bear shits in the woods. But I wouldn't let myself think about being sick. Well, except for when I told RDC I felt like Tucker, having to blow my nose on ferns instead of Kleenex. Tucker's Countryside
We admired flowers and stars and rockslides and boggled at people traversing a scree field on the way up Conundrum Peak. I discovered, not at all to my surprise, that I prefer a hole I have dug myself in nice clean dirt to campground toilets. We shivered in the springs and shivered getting out. RDC took photographs and I read The Persian Boy. We ate rehydrated "lasagna" and brushed our beaks with cinnamon-flavored toothpaste because that was the one travel-sized tube we had found. And I was not sick, damn it.