A Birthday Escape to My Happy Place

Pardon the bit of a break, spring tends to be my busiest time of year with 4/20, my birthday, and this year The Mendo Cup packing my schedule. And a girl’s gotta get the garden started too! Plus I’m prepping for my upcoming endometriosis excision and hysterectomy surgery and stocking up so I’ll be comfy recovering from Yeeting my Uterus next week. It’s a lot.

Amidst a busy but successful 4/20 at Doobie Nights, picking up samples to judge for The Mendo Cup as well as helping with the website and social media, and prep appointments including my first colonoscopy for my upcoming surgery, I was not in the mood to plan anything that required effort for my birthday at the end of April.

Luckily my partner Josh understood the assignment and booked my birthday weekend at the most adorable tucked away little hot springs resort in Mendocino, Orr Hot Springs. A couple miles down the road is an old growth redwood grove called Montgomery Woods, one of the few left after Mendocino County was heavily logged, and a truly magical nature escape.

All we had to do was get there, and then we’d be off grid, away from cell phone reception, wifi and responsibilities, with no agenda other than a redwood hike and lots of hot mineral water soaks and saunas. Puurrrrrrfection!

Orr Hot Springs isn’t a high end spa with expensive treatments, it’s remote, a bit rugged, cozy, and the perfect example of what I call Mendo’s signature style, rustic chic. The drive there from Ukiah climbs up over gorgeous rolling hills on a windy road and down into the remote valley via some gnarly switchbacks for about 13 miles.

And I know from experience that the road from the Mendocino coast is even longer, windier, and more prone to crumbling off into the ravine in the winter, as it was the very first time I visited Orr in a mini van full of women I’d met through the amazing Noyo Food Forest not long after moving to Fort Bragg. One lane was closed on the road out there that year, but that’s pretty typical for those Mendo backroads winding through dense redwoods.

Orr is one of Mendocino’s best kept secrets, as I found when I moved to the coast, but it wasn’t always so tranquil and tucked away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. It was quite the attraction back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, boasting a schoolhouse, year-round staff, restaurants and bars, activities like croquet, and basically a little resort town in addition to the bathhouse and mineral springs that it’s known for. Not much of the original place is left, however, because over the decades it’s burned to the ground four times (and was quickly rebuilt each time).

I read all about the history of Orr, which was a natural hot springs used by the Pomo and other local tribes for centuries before being discovered by colonizers in the 1860s, in a delightful little book that my good friend Fern’s mom Katy Tahja wrote called Orr Hot Springs: A Brief History. It was quite the attraction for health seekers who would spend a week or so at a time there after making the treacherous journey by stagecoach.

By the 1970s, the resort was bought by a group of back-to-the-landers who formed an association to run it together and live in community. Which is the most Mendo sounding story ever. One of the members eventually bought the rest out in the early 90s and it’s managed by a local team of his staff today. There are plenty of photos in the lodge and old signs from past iterations of the resort. Such a rich history held in these sacred waters!

On one visit to Orr a couple years ago, my friend Brian who is a groundskeeper there let Josh and I take some photos in the bathhouse area where usually phones / cameras are banned to maintain privacy for the clothing optional pools, tubs and saunas. Every day the bathhouse closes from 10am to noon for a cleaning, so we got to sneak a few photos of it clean and empty before it was opened back up. This cleaning window is also the perfect time for a hike at Montgomery Woods, just a mile or two west.

It’s hard to get a social media marketer like me to put the phone down for long, but one thing I love about escaping to Orr is there is no cell reception or wifi, forcing me to truly unplug and live in the moment. Stepping behind the redwood curtain brings a stillness and calm that is unmatched. The only thing on the agenda at Orr is soaking, sauna, cold plunges and getting a little sun. Or maybe making a picnic lunch or taking a hike in the redwoods. It’s absolutely perfect.

One of the unique things I love about Orr is the communal kitchen. Upon arriving, we are given stickers with our name and checkout date to put on our food bins. There are big industrial fridges for food storage and a massive cast iron range and oven, as well as plenty of prep space and cookware and some BBQs outside. I love to bring a charcuterie picnic for lunch, something easy to make like a salad and pasta dinner, and some oatmeal and yogurt for breakfast. The kitchen is always buzzing with activity and people preparing and sharing food, often dressed in robes and flip flops.

There’s a lovely little rock and sculpture garden near the front gate for smoking. So on my last visit, I brought all the samples that I was judging for the Mendo Cup, and took frequent breaks with my Venty dry flower vape in the smoking garden, which is very zen with a Ganesh statue and plenty of benches.

Another one of my favorite things about Orr is that the grounds are guarded by their resident cats, Sherlock and Watson, two magnificent black and white beasts who can often be found curled up by the wood stove in the lodge or prowling around. I don’t have to miss out on kitty time when I'm in my happy place!

A true relic from a bygone era, reservations at Orr used to be made by calling the landline and leaving a message, and then their staff would call you back to confirm. They recently upgraded and online reservations are now available for both day use and overnight stays. The day use is definitely worth it since you get a full day to use the bathhouse and kitchen - it’s plenty of time for soaking, sauna, and making a meal. But if you drove all the way out there, it’s well worth it to stay overnight for the full experience.

They have a two night minimum and a variety of cozy cabins, round yurts, and even some larger rooms for families or groups. The rooms are rustic but comfy, with shared bathrooms on the grounds and the access to the bathhouse to shower, soak, sauna and swim. The best part about staying overnight is that you can use the bathhouse at all hours of the night! Saunas close at 9pm, but guests can enjoy a steamy soak by moonlight. Pure magic!

The hike at nearby Montgomery Woods is only a couple miles round-trip, but it starts with a pretty decent incline to get your heart pumping. This is one of the only old growth groves left in Mendocino County, which has been heavily logged. Luckily these ancient giants were just too hard to get to, so this remote canyon was spared. There’s a loop along the forest floor, and when we were there, they had been working on the trail and building new raised platforms which is helpful because it gets wet in winter there and the trail would often be washed out by the stream.

There is just something about redwoods that draw me in. I simply HAVE to hug them, even if I get spiderwebs in my hair doing it. The redwood forest looks prehistoric and the scale of the trees is just unfathomable. Many trees in Montgomery Woods have fallen over, exposing huge root balls, or been hollowed out by fire inside, creating charred caverns within still living trees. Between the mineral waters of Orr and a walk in the redwoods, the stress just melts away and I go home feeling rested, nourished and like I went back in time.

So now that I’ve let you in on Mendo’s best kept secret, I hope you book yourself a weekend of rejuvenation and calm at Orr Hot Springs and enjoy forest bathing, mineral water soaking, and the silence of the redwoods like I just got to do for my birthday. It’s always worth the gnarly drive and as soon as I get home, I want to go back. My happy place is truly a healing sanctuary of hot water, big trees and bliss.

✨🧖‍♀️🌲🛀💦

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