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1997-98

Head up to Jemez for Soda

By Frank Zoretich
For The Journal
   

Editor's note: The following story was written as part of a series called "Cheap Thrills" for the Albuquerque Journal. The criteria for these "thrills" are 1) a day-trippable circle roughly 150 miles from Albuquerque and 2) fees of no more than $10. Enjoy.

JEMEZ SPRINGS—The Jemez River tunnels through Soda Dam, a natural rock formation a mile-and-a-half north of this mountain village.
The river's water, its chill moderated by hot springs, spills through the hole as a waterfall that splashes into a pool shaded by a rugged arch of calcium carbonate rock called travertine.
On a summer weekend, the dam site crawls with visitors. They climb on the rock and splash in roadside hot springs. They swim in the waterfall pool.

Soda Dam Location: Take I-25 to NM 44. At San Ysidro, take NM 4 for about 19 miles. Soda Dam is on the right. For more information, contact the Jemez Ranger District at 829-3535. Hours: During daylight hours. Cost: Free Features: A waterfall, natural pool and hot springs.

Highway signs warn motorists that the stretch of road passing the dam is a "Congested Area." You have to slow way down to avoid hitting pedestrians strolling on the pavement.
On previous trips into the Jemez Mountains, I'd scorned to stop at Soda Dam. Gawkers line up along the highway guardrail to watch people splashing in the water. (Although skinny-dipping is known to occur at some of the hot springs in the area, this is too public a place for such bathing.)
But after several drive-bys, I kept seeing in memory that shadowed waterfall spilling into the pool. I imagined myself beneath that waterfall, a cascade of cool falling on my head.
When I could resist no longer, I drove one day to Soda Dam just to get beneath the waterfall.
I found a place to park and walked down to the river. To get to a place where I could easily enter the pool I first had to wade knee-deep across the river about 50 yards downstream from the pool. I walked back up the other bank, stripped down to my jeans, and eased into the pool. I began to breaststroke toward the waterfall. Then I tried an overhand crawl. Then I attempted an underwater power glide. But no matter what stroke I used, I couldn't get near the waterfall. The river's current pushed me downstream faster than I could move up.
A stronger swimmer might have been able get beneath the falling water, but I had to be content with upstream struggles alternating with downstream drifts.
Even though I'd not quite reached my goal, I emerged refreshed -- thrilled, to be honest -- with jeans that stayed wet for the rest of the day's driving.
Although I've seen children on inner tubes drifting on eddies in the pool, this is not a swim for everyone. There are no lifeguards. Surveying the groups of people clustered on the river's banks or climbing on the rocky dam, I couldn't quite picture any of them jumping in to save me if I'd swum into trouble.
Later, I called Bob Crostic, assistant ranger in charge of recreation for the Jemez Ranger District of the Santa Fe National Forest. The water in the pool is sometimes as much as 12 feet deep, he told me. But at other times, after spring runoff or flash floods, rocks moved by the river can almost fill the pool.
The forest service had been sued, unsuccesfully, by a swimmer injured when he dived off the dam into a pool that was only a couple of feet deep at the time, Crostic said. And once an irate caller blamed him and the forest service for intentionally filling the pool with rocks to discourage swimming.
The forest service plans, eventually, to build a visitor's information center at Soda Dam. Displays will explain the origin of the dam -- the calcium carbonates that form it were deposited along a fault across the river by waters welling up from subterranean depths where they'd been in close contact with still-hot igneous rock.
Other displays would cover hot springs in the area, and the Jemez Cave across the road from Soda Dam, where corn kernels have been dated back to 880 B.C. and other traces of human occupation are suspected to date back to 2,500 B.C. (The Jemez Mountains are the remnants of a volcanic peak more than 14,000 feet high.)
The visitor's center would also have a prominent sign saying, "Don't Snort the Water." Although they haven't been tested, Crostic said, some hot springs welling up in the area probably contain an amoeba called Naegleri Fowlerii that can cause a quick-killing brain infection called PAM -- Primary Amoebic Meningoencephalitis.
Although the amoeba is common in hot springs, deaths are rare -- only 200 confirmed worldwide so far, 65 of them in the United States. If you don't put your head underwater, it's not likely the amoeba will be able to penetrate the membrane of your olfactory nerve and travel to your brain.
Traces of arsenic in the river, also contributed by the hot springs, are not so concentrated as to be harmful, Crostic added.
To get to Soda Dam, drive up I-25 to NM 44, which angles northwest from Exit 242: At San Ysidro, 23 miles up NM 44, turn right onto NM 4 and follow that road for about 19 miles. You'll see Soda Dam looming up on the right.
For more information, contact the Jemez Ranger District at 829-3535.