In Hot Water

Spring hit Rossland and the Kootenays pretty hard, so on Sunday I joined a convoy of vehicles heading north in search of big mountains and good snow. The first stop on our journey was a set of natural hot springs a few ks off the highway. Some keen folks have hauled in a bunch of cement powder and made some convenient pools to sit in, as well as setting up a pretty impressive system of pipes to collect the water from the various cracks and rocks from which it emerges.

In fact, the last week or so has involved quite a bit of time lounging around in hot water. During the extended closing day shenanigans at Red Mountain, we jumped into a few of the hot tubs attached to unnocupied apartments and condos on the ski hill. So you can rest assured that I speak with some authority when I say that hot tubs and hot springs are completely overrated. Yes, I know this is a fairly contentious position to take, especially in British Columbia, where skiing and hot tubs seem to be the recreational equivalent of siamese twins (as an aside - am I supposed to say conjoined twins? Is siamese twins not PC? Would anyone know what I meant if I said conjoined twins?). Bear with me, though, because my argument is both simple and convincing.

Let's say you walk up to a hot tub. You've been skiing or something equally tiring and fun all day, and now you want to relax. So you get into the hot tub. It's hot (or you're doing it wrong), it's relaxing, you float a bit, maybe there are some jets that gently jiggle you around. Life is grand. And so far, you and me are on the same page - this bit is pretty good. But then comes the bad part: You sit around in the hot tub for ages and ages and ages.

At the hot springs on Sunday we spent several hours lounging around. Hours. Basically doing nothing. If I said to you, "Come over to my place and we'll sit around for a few hours doing nothing," you would say "That sounds pretty boring, how about we do something interesting instead." But for some reason, when you say "Let's go somewhere and sit around for a few hours doing nothing while immersed up to our necks in warm water." this is suddenly the most exciting thing anyone can think of. I'm going to go on the record here and say that I have absolutely no idea why the warm water thing makes such a big difference. Think of other boring things, and then add warm water. Doing your taxes in warm water - still boring. Writing selection criteria for public service job applications in warm water - still boring. Watching those olympic events that they only televise because there's a chance of an Australian medal in warm water - still boring.

Don't get me wrong. The first bit, where you get into the water and it's warm and relaxing, is just dandy. And natural hot springs, where there's a real sense of wilderness and isolation, are even better. But after a few minutes of that it's time for something new.

Warm water isn't even a reliable way of improving things that are already fun. Riding a bicycle in warm water - tiring and sweaty, also not a practical mode of transportation. Eating deep fried foods in warm water - would make everything soggy. Climbing a rock in warm water - it's not even clear what this would involve, but it doesn't sound good.

Hot water should be like going to the supermarket: Get in, enjoy the brief period when things are novel and exciting, and get out before things get boring and you feel oppressed because the cheese is so expensive (I'm in Golden now, and it's daylight robbery).

Right. Hot tubs = not that great. So, here's the awkward bit. I'm increasingly self conscious about the endings of my blog posts. I don't really know how to give a sense of considered closure to whatever I've written about each time. Ideally, I'd like you to get the sense that I'm sitting in an armchair, wearing a dressing gown over a shirt and pants and, having contently finished my story and instillled you all with new wisdom, am now continuing to smoke my pipe.

Of course, that's not really the case. I'm actually stealing wireless while sitting at someone's kitchen table in a trailer park. How did I end up in a trailer park? I'm ski touring for the next five days, so I'll tell you when I get back.