Near Miss at Alvord Hot Springs - RAPEY REDNECKS!

[slide-alder]

A friend and I had a close call this week while on a road trip throughout southeastern Oregon. This happened at Alvord Hot Springs, just north of Fields Station, on the east side of the Steens. Though Alvord is well-regarded and has nice facilities, I obviously cannot give this place a good review, and instead, I offer the following story:

My friend and I had booked it over to the nearby Pike Creek Camp earlier in the day, in order to set up a tent and claim a spot next to the large boulder with the tree growing out of it - widely regarded as the best spot in the whole area. Once we had camp set up, we headed down to the hot springs.

At first, it was just the two of us, and shortly we were joined by two other women. We had a nice time chatting until the three sketchy rednecks arrived. The first was an employee at Fields Station. We had seen him earlier when we stopped there for the famous burgers and shakes. He was a little weird but pretty benign compared to the next guy. His friend Michael (a local rancher) and THE HOT SPRINGS CARETAKER then arrived. Michael was loud, lewd, drunk, and it was no secret what he wanted. His opening line: "Are you girls naked? Why don't you come back home with me and my friend here" (as he indicated the hot springs caretaker). We declined, and continued to decline when he asked what we were doing that night (sleeping), and so forth. But he became more persistent. The four of us women decided to leave together. At that point, creeper-Michael speculated that we were all gay, otherwise we'd all sleep with him (and various other things were said, but I'd prefer not to repeat them).

It wasn't over yet. We were followed by the hot springs caretaker and creeper-Michael, all the way down the path to the parking lot. We started to get really nervous then. And there we discovered that creeper-Michael's giant-ass truck with horse trailer was parked in such a way that it blocked both of our cars in. FUCK.

My friend and I immediately leapt into my car anyway, and locked the doors. We pulled out knives, and I wheeled my car around so that we could get out. We looked over at our new allies, the other two women who waited with us, and walked out with us. They were in their camper, and they made it out from behind creeper-Michael's truck too. They were barely able to, but they did. *insert massive sigh of relief*

Both of our vehicles trundled out towards the road, but creeper-Michael and the hot springs caretaker were following us in the truck. I pulled aside of them, and they asked me again where I was camping and told me they were coming with me, and I told them simply, "Where are we camping?! Not with you!" They told me to go ahead and camp, then. Then they insinuated many more terrible things. I told them to leave the parking lot first. They had to leave now so we knew we weren't going to be followed. But I was suspicious that they knew where we were headed. Pike Creek is popular after all. And they did head down the road toward Pike Creek, and now we were terrified that they were lying in wait for us, and they could most certainly block us in with the truck, so we'd be stuck up a canyon. Then who knows what would happen. They were definitely on the hunt now.

My friend in the car with me, and the two women in the camper discussed through our rolled-down windows what to do, as we watched the creeper truck headlights in the distance. We were too afraid to go back and risk being attacked. My friend and I had one other sleeping bag, a blanket, and plenty of layers, so we could make do just fine for the night if we left our tent at Pike Creek. Hell, we'd probably sleep in the car so we'd have somewhere to lock the door!

We then began to notice headlights on the horizon, coming towards us. The rednecks were back. SHIT.

With the camper trailer women, we booked it down the highway, south toward Fields. We kept watching those headlights in our rearview mirrors, feeling terrified and amazed at their persistence. The headlights fell away a few miles outside of Fields, but we kept going for good measure. We had too much adrenaline going for sleep, anyway. We crossed over into Nevada, and reassessed. We all still decided to keep going.

We stopped, finally, at a rest stop on Highway 140 around 1 am. My friend and I stayed in our seats, curled up, and tried to sleep. But before that, I also pulled out every implement in my car I could think of -- my saw for downed trees on forest roads, my ice ax for hiking on Steens, my camping knives, my friend's knives... We put the ice ax and saw on the dashboard as a "Don't you dare" statement, and each had a knife in our hand.

We slept fitfully. But fortunately no one followed us that far.

Fortunately we got our gear the next morning, while we figured creeper-Michael was asleep and hung over.

So it all worked out. We got to meet two amazing ladies who are road tripping to Crater Lake, and we teamed up to help each other in a scary situation. We all were alright in the end. But the thing is, this should NOT HAVE HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

This was hugely creepy and I would not recommend this place to anyone. Ladies, especially, don't go here alone. If I ever go again, I'm bringing the hugest guy I know as a bodyguard. But more likely, I'll never go to Fields or the hot springs again.

[payslee]

Glad you all made it out.

If you've not done so already, I encourage you to file formal complaints with the hot spring managing agency and with local law enforcement.

Payslee

[retired jerry]

Horrible!

Yeah, and Fields Station too where the first guy works

Any idea where "the local rancher" works?

[woodswalker]

Completely outrageous. I encourage you also to file a complaint in more than one place as occasionally in small areas the creeps are friends with the local powers that be. Sounds like you all did a good job of getting out of there together.
Woodswalker

[TheOtherBob]

*scowls*

I'm glad this ended safely--physically--and I hope you are doing well psychologically. I encourage you to remain consciously aware of any unconscious associations you may start to develop between the emotions created by this incident and the outdoors in general, because by being aware of them, you have the power to process them and shut them down and maintain unaltered your current level of appreciation for the outdoors. The fear surely motivated you to flight, but on a more analytical level, you did The Right Thing (tm) by removing yourself from the situation and not egging them on. I'm sorry that you didn't get the trip you planned.

There are available very small form-factor tasers (a bit pricey), though I would not encourage you to start carrying one without being aware of local statutes (not sure if it's kosher to carry them concealed in the 48 contiguous states) and maybe taking a formal self-defense course that integrates them into the training (I'm not trying to be paternal or imply weakness or anything like that--I am by profession very pragmatic about training and skills development). I completely agree that no one should really HAVE to carry that type of gear in the outdoors.

Maybe other women can offer other suggestions for preparedness with respect to these types of situations based in their experiences. Given the readership of this site, I'm sure it would be useful to a wide audience (if for no other reason than to spread general awareness and "best known methods").

Glad you're OK.

[ebishop]

That is terrifying. I'm sorry you guys had such an awful experience, especially on what should have been a peaceful time in the wilderness. Absolutely disgusting on their part. Thank you for publicizing this.

[Hagbard Celine]

Bad, messed up situation...glad everyone is ok. I offer my services as "biggest guy" as I am 6'4 and about 380. I have always been one to stand up physically or otherwise for complete equality. Things like this should never happen to anyone and I would love to have words with those idiots. Although in my experience people like that don't learn no matter how harsh the lesson.

I don't really expect you to take me up on the offer but it is an earnest one, me and my family go camping/backpacking almost every week...it's about time we experienced it with some other folks anyway.

[sprengers4jc]

So sorry this happened to you, and a sobering reminder for us women who go camping with female friends (or in my case, my wife) that there are many weirdos out there. I'm glad you made it out safe. It's awful, isn't it, that you have to even consider taking a big guy along, just in case? Please do file the report. If nothing else, I'm sure the local sheriff there knows who these guys are and can have a word (or 100!) with them about their lack of decency. The sheriff's name is in this article and since the caretakers are the Davis family who own it, I'm sure they wouldn't enjoy the negative publicity that their son or whoever has now brought upon them. http://www.oregonlive.com/travel/index. ... anged.html

[PNWhiker]

Wow. Glad you are OK.

It just reminds me that despite the incredible advancement in technology, human DNA has changed very, very little in the last couple of centuries!

[retired jerry]

Interesting article. Connection between Fields Spring and Alvord Hotsprings.

Funny that they now charge $5 and have installed a caretaker - that harrasses people.

Report your story to http://www.oregonianmediagroup.com/abou ... news-team/

Also report it to KOIN, KATU, and KGW - they're always looking for interesting stories.

They all have occsional stories about Fields Springs and Alvord Desert as tourist destinations so if they sexually harass people that would be useful information

Make sure you remember details like the exact words they used. They may want to twist it to you over-reacted, although society is now less tolerant of this sort of behavior.