Dear Action Line: What is the story with the hot springs along U.S. Highway 550 just before Shalona Hill? Who controls it? Should there be a name for it? And what gives it that irony look? – Always Springtime
Dear Always: Oh, right. You might mean that spot on the east side of the road where tourists stop and locals always pass by, often thinking: “What is that dang deal over there? Someday I should check it out.”
You mean that place?
Action Line has lived here for many moons and had to plead nearly complete ignorance. What in Earth’s bubbly underworld is that darn thing? Fortunately, we have a few geologists around who are attracted to interesting sites such as this.
There are at least four springs in the Animas River valley, David Gonzales, Fort Lewis College professor of geosciences, informed Action Line. These spring waters move along east-west trending faults and fractures that cut across the valley. Tests indicate the springs’ source is meteoric fluids, a fancy way of saying rain and snow. This water is heated by underground forces – possibly the mantle 75 miles down – and eventually arrives back at the surface. One of the four springs is on the east side of the valley, with three on the west side, most notably Trimble Hot Springs.
The spring along the highway is known as Pinkerton Hot Springs. Like Trimble now, Pinkerton was once a tourist attraction. It was located on a ranch developed in the 1870s by Judge James Pinkerton and his wife, with their seven children. Around the 1930s, it was abandoned, and nowadays you’ll find Colorado Timberline Academy in lieu of the Pinkerton place.
Gonzales explained that the thermal waters in Pinkerton Hot Springs come to the surface over several hundred meters starting on the west side of U.S. Highway 550. This used to be a problem, as the waters messed up the road base.
In 2001, the Colorado Department of Transportation constructed a drainage system to transfer water to the east side of the highway, and in the process stacked pieces of concrete or limestone or other rock (sources differ) to form the pyramid, or cairn, you see today. CDOT added an interpretive sign in 2004, CDOT spokeswoman Lisa Schwantes said.
So, should you let your kids play here or drink the water? Well, the surface around the springs is slick-as-slime, and there’s that pesky sign CDOT added in 2020 that reads: “DANGER: DO NOT CLIMB HOT SPRINGS.” So take care if you do.
The springs’ bottled water was popular in Durango back in the late 1800s, as Duane Smith’s seminal “Rocky Mountain Boom Town” will tell you. As everyone with any sense knows, springs have magical properties and cure most ills. Just like CBD oil. And the water is fortified with many essentials, just like your cereal.
“The dominant elements in the spring are calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium and bicarbonate,” Gonzales said. “The orange color is produced by the formation of iron hydroxide and oxide because the water also contains minor amounts of iron.”
But he’s a bit worried about possible bacteria or other microbes in the water from both human interaction (“interaction,” that’s funny; don’t think about it too long) and animals. Action Line, for one, will find an alternative drinking fountain.
Dear Action Line: So, given that the city of Durango just plain skipped a Friday recycling pickup a couple weeks ago, will it credit back the accounts of residents who paid for a service but didn’t receive it? What if you purchased a six-pack but got only five cans? I figure the city owes me $2.50. Or are residents with Friday pickup just expected to take one for the team? – Reece I. Cling
Dear Reece: The good news for Action Line was the chance to email-meet Allison Baker, the city’s public works director since June. The civil engineer with over 30 years’ experience in multiple industries took time from revamping and reorganizing public works to answer.
The bad news for us is the answer is “no.” Everything was picked up, albeit a few days late.
“We are not currently planning refunds since we will accomplish our normal scope of work,” Baker said. “Any customer who finds that they have a volume or odor issue (or any other problem) can call our Trash/Recycle office and we’ll make every effort to correct the issue on an individual basis.”
Baker moved here from Arizona but is no stranger to Colorado, having lived here for about two decades total previously.
“I’m pleased to be living in Durango and am thoroughly enjoying bringing together a talented staff,” she said, “working with an engaged City Council and (Infrastructure Advisory Board) to create a solid ‘home’ for the city’s infrastructure.”
If you want to learn a bit more about Baker, check out her “City Currents” appearance with City Manager José Madrigal on Aug. 26: www.durangogov.org/945/Special-Programs.
Email questions and suggestions to actionline@durangoherald.com or mail them to Action Line, The Durango Herald, 1275 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301. For those who didn’t get the arguably witty but perhaps incongruous headline: Pinkerton detectives were a sometimes-brutal force hired as private special agents for a variety of tasks, such as ending strikes and rooting out troublemakers.
