God's Bath

[flyminion]

Today, Cade and I went to God’s Bath near Sonora, CA. This was one of the top three picks on my swimming hole wishlist for this trip (Lemke’s Lagoon on South Yuba River and Candy Rock being the other two), but we weren’t sure if we would get to go to God's Bath on this trip, as access to the area has been restricted for much of the summer. A youtube video from about six weeks ago showed that the road was closed and the river was too high for swimming. More recent posts to social media indicated that the water had receded, but the legality of accessing the area was still questionable. If the road was still closed, it would mean we would have to walk 3.5 miles past the gate to the bridge over the Clavey River, and then walk another half-mile up the river bank. A recent post on tripadvisor (I think) said that the road was now open. I checked the forest service website this morning, and their list of current road statuses seemed to confirm this. The road being open would be bittersweet. On one hand, an open road would be much more convenient for us given that we were relocating from Grass Valley to Angel’s Camp today (a 2.5 hour drive, plus an additional 1.5 hours from Angel’s Camp to the swimming hole parking area), and we probably wouldn’t have time for an eight-mile roundtrip hike. On the other hand, it also would be convenient for everyone else, which would mean that the crowds would not be deterred. The best-case scenario would be if the road were open, but the crowds hadn’t caught wind of it yet. Luckily, that turned out to be the case (either that, or it was just that today was a Thursday, and school is back in session).

The road was paved all the way there. We could see where some landslides had been cleared, and there were still a couple of large rocks in the roadway. There were about four or five other cars parked at the bridge when we got there. The bridge was pretty high above the valley, and we had to use a scramble trail with a rope to get down to the river bank. From there, it was a fairly easy half-mile walk along the river bank to the swimming hole. There was a little bit of boulder scrambling, but nothing as annoying as yesterday. The water in the river was crystal clear, but it did not look as blue as the South Yuba River in all areas because the bedrock was a dark red color.

God's Bath was a large figure-eight shaped tub at the base of a series of small cascades. After the tub, the water flowed through a wide chute with a white granite bottom (all photos and video clips from this entry that have me in them were taken by Cade):

Watch on YouTube

The chute was only 2-3 feet deep at the rim of the tub, but it dropped down to about seven feet moving downstream. There’s no direct way out of the tub once you’re in it, so you have to swim all the way down the chute and around the corner to get out of the water.

There was also a large hole in the rocks about 10 feet in diameter that connected to the main swimming hole via an underwater archway (you can actually see it from above the water in the over-exposed photo below):



High cliffs towered over the swimming hole on the river-right side. On the river-left were flat(ish) rocks for sunbathing and jumping opportunities up to about 12 feet high. I’ve heard that some people also jump from the high cliffs on the river right, but I had no desire to do that, let alone try to get up there.

There were a few other people at the swimming hole. A group of three people headed upstream shortly after we got there, and there was a family swimming near the mouth of the chute. It was pretty hot out, so I wasted no time jumping in. The water was a cool 67 °F, which cooled me off pretty quickly. I took my diving mask with me when I jumped so I could scope out the depth. It was probably about 15-20 feet deep all around the tub with no submerged hazards upstream of the “rim” of the tub. I swam under the rocks and into the hole. The tunnel was probably only two or three feet long. The depth of the water in the hole was probably about 12 feet. After I jumped a couple of times, I was tired from swimming through the cold water, so I lay down on the warm rocks to warm up.

After I got warmed up enough to get back into the water, I decided to try jumping into the hole. I had left my diving mask in there after an earlier jump into the main pool so that I could use it to get out of the hole if I needed to (although I had to get out without it when I left it there). I was worried I might smack the opposite side of the hole when jumping, but I landed pretty close to the center, even though it doesn’t look like it in the video.

Watch on YouTube

I alternated between jumping and warming up on the rocks a few more times. The swimming hole wasn’t getting direct sunlight at this time of day because the cliff cast a shadow over that portion of the river. As we were about to wind down for the day, I jumped back in and decided to try tossing Cade the rope that was hanging over the pool.



Cade caught the rope, and I came back up and swung from the ledge above the tub. I swung from a lower area, because I was afraid of smacking into the rock wall on the other side of the pool if I didn’t let go in time.



A couple of guys who had shown up after us got out a drone and started flying it over the pool. Cade said I should get out of the way so they could film, so I decided to jump two more times and get out for good. As I was taking pictures, the three people who had continued upstream earlier were coming back, and one of them apparently almost fell down the waterfall. He slipped again when trying to skirt around the edge of the hole, and he tumbled down the rocks and into the main pool with his backpack still on. He said he was fine, but he acted like he had hurt his shoulder. After he got out of the water, the trio quickly left without talking to anyone. We talked to the guys with the drone for a little while. I said that I had seen another potential swimming hole upstream on Google Earth with a waterfall spilling in from a side creek, but they said they didn’t see it with the drone. We had a brief conversation about swimming holes in the area, and one of the guys said he had never been here before, but he liked to go to Blue Streak, which is on our agenda for tomorrow along with Candy Rock. After I was dry, we enjoyed a short walk/rock hop back to the car.

After seeing that I went to a swimming hole called God's Bath, my southwest Virginia friends are going to ask the obvious question: how does God's Bath compare to the Devil's Bathtub? First off, I can say that a 'nice hot bath' is a concept lost on both God and the devil. The Devil's Bathtub seems a tad colder (I measured it at 62 °F on Labor Day weekend last year, whereas God's Bath was 67 °F today). I think the Devil's Bathtub is in a nicer setting, but God's Bath is a bit grander in scale (damn west coast trying to best everything from the east). In terms of swimming hole functionality, God's Bath wins hands-down. In terms of the "cool factor", it's hard for me to say that one is really better than the other. Here they are side-by-side:





In summary, I would say God’s Bath is a pretty good swimming hole. It had good jumping opportunities, a rope swing, cool rock formations, and clear water. The water could have stood to be a little warmer, although it might have been more pleasant earlier in the day before the sun migrated behind the cliffs towering over the swimming hole. I did somewhat prefer the South Yuba River (which has warmer water and comparable scenery) and North Fork American River (for outstanding scenery) to God’s Bath. However, God’s Bath certainly doesn’t suck, and it is well worth the short trek required to access it. I would probably come back if I were ever in the area again, and I would also like to explore further upstream to see what else the Clavey River has to offer.