CALIFORNIA ALBUM : A Fine Soak That Treats Body and Soul : Hippies discovered the Saline Valley hot springs in the ‘60s. Today’s eclectic users say the experience is worth the trip on 50 miles of bad road.

For most people, the brutal drive on Saline Valley Road would not be worth it--50 miles of rocky, washboard dirt road past desert scrub and the ruins of long-abandoned salt and borax works.

But for an unusually far-flung assortment of counterculturists and desert rats, the road leads to nirvana in the form of three hot springs oases tucked in a corner of this remote valley outside the west boundary of Death Valley National Monument.

For decades, the seemingly inhospitable wasteland has nurtured a peculiar, informal transient community--including travelers from Europe and even Siberia--that counts on the miserable road to keep civilization out.

During the late 1960s, hippies began driving out here to soak in the trio of hot springs on U.S. Bureau of Land Management land. That gathering evolved into the current collection of bohemians, loners, tourists and others who share a love for hot springs and a wish to escape, for a few days at least, from the invasions of modern life.

“It’s nice because it’s off the main track,” said Anson Averell, 54, who recently drove his ancient VW van back to the San Francisco Bay Area after a two-month stay. “It’s isolated and quiet, and most people don’t make it because of the long, tedious road to get here.’

Nudity is the norm, both in and out of the hot tubs. Soakers customarily know each other only by first names or colorful nicknames.

An informal self-government by peer pressure has developed over the years, but regulars bristle at any suggestion that the colony is cult-like.

“This isn’t a commune,” said Case, a middle-aged woman who declined to give her last name. She sat on a folding chair one recent afternoon, among a small group of naked women and men, and talked about the Saline Valley springs.

“People come and go constantly, so the community here exists at all times, but not with the same people,” Case said. “We also don’t make any rules--this is on BLM land, so we follow BLM regulations.”

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Gil Daniel, 62, a retired casino worker who lives in San Diego, has frequented the springs for 21 years.

“Nobody ever says: ‘You must do this, you must do that,’ ” he said. “People just take it on themselves to do whatever needs to be done, like cleaning the tubs if they need it. If anyone ever gets too officious, the rest have a way of slapping him down and saying: ‘Hey, back off.’ ”

Daniel added: “Despite the nudity, there’s no hanky-panky or sex orgies that go on. People are better behaved here than they are back in society.”

This particular day, the tubs are shared by bikers, young entrepreneurs, dreadlocked hippies and their children, tourists on holiday, nomadic retirees and out-of-work laborers. Some are longtime regulars, others adventuresome travelers who just happened by.

A few hard-core dropouts used to inhabit the springs for years on end, until the Bureau of Land Management set new regulations in 1986. Now, stays of longer than two weeks are only permitted between October and April. In the peak season, the population usually numbers between 30 and 50 people.

The hot springs aficionados have added crude facilities to the area over the years, providing the work and materials themselves. The spring nearest the main road, Lower Warm Springs, is equipped with concrete hot tubs fed by an underground, gravity plumbing system that cools the fresh spring water, which comes out of the ground at about 120 degrees.

Also connected to the system are a shower, sink, a patch of irrigated lawn and a large goldfish pond.

About half a mile away lies the more primitive Palm Springs, offering nothing but a couple of concrete tubs and the shade of transplanted palm trees. The third, farther off spring has been left undeveloped.

People come for different reasons, but most mention the peacefulness of the isolated desert as one factor. Sheila Cotton, who helps operate a family candy business in Incline Village, Nev., said: “My husband and I like to come down here because it’s a different world. Time doesn’t matter here, there are no phones, no news--it’s isolated in a lot of ways besides physically.”

For a place that few Californians know about, the springs attract a surprising number of international visitors. Annette Kaiser of Munich, Germany, on her third trip to Saline Valley, said that she came from Europe this time just to revisit the hot springs.

“I just love the empty space that you find here,” she said. “The combination of water and mountains and peace and desert is very rare.” Her husband, documentary filmmaker George Eich, said: “What I like is that there are no people, because it’s difficult to get in.”

Mikhail Pilipouk, 23, of Novokuznetsk, Siberia, was traveling through the Eastern Sierra with an American friend when they heard about Saline Valley. “It’s very interesting,” Pilipouk said in halting English. “It would be good to have something like this in Siberia, it’s so cold there.”

Other recent soakers included a couple from Holland and a British citizen who lives near Paris.

The Saline Valley community has retained a sense of fun over the years. Each February, a softball game is played between teams from Lower Warm Springs and the neighboring Palm Springs. “Some people play nude, so there’s no sliding,” said Chili Bob, a fixture in the valley since the early ‘80s.

“Thanksgiving is the biggest time out here--we’ll usually have about 200 people show up. On St. Patrick’s Day we turn the pool green with food coloring. We have a real nice Christmas and New Year too,” he said.

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There is a dark side as well to the lore of Saline Valley. One Southern California couple who visited the springs in 1986 vanished without a trace. Their skeletons were found more than a year later buried in a shallow grave nearby. The case was never solved.

Charles Manson is widely believed to have soaked at the springs just before he was arrested in the nearby Panamint Valley for his clan’s murders.

The remoteness of the valley is a danger in itself, especially during the summer. The Inyo County Search and Rescue Team is called out several times a year to find travelers who become lost, stuck or broken down in the desert. Some have been near death from dehydration when found.

The community at the springs now feels threatened by an unexpected source--the proposed California Desert Protection Act. Almost everyone at the springs said they oppose the bill because they believe that the National Park Service, which would become the new administrator of much of the area, would likely close down or restrict access to the springs.

At the very least, soakers complained, if the Park Service took over, things would never be the same.

For the most part, the BLM and Inyo County authorities have adopted a live-and-let-live policy toward the Saline Valley soakers.

Sgt. Dan Lucas of the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department said: “There are a lot of people out there that some people think are a little strange. Personally, I enjoy being around them--they’re nice people. . . . They maintain a sense of order out there without government interference.

Desert Colony

The hot springs of Saline Valley, west of Death Valley National Monument, lure a colorful colony of old hippies, naturists, desert rats and foreign tourists. Nudity is common, but the area is so remote that the regulars are seldom bothered by outsiders.