Words and photograph by Daniel Wakefield Pasley.

Lying on the western slopes of the Cascade Range the Bagby, Cougar, and Umpqua Hot Springs caress and flirt with the Pacific Ring of Fire1, a global chain of volcanic and geothermal activity zones. Life of course has been drawn to these portals of the past for centuries. Oceanic and terrestrial hot springs possess the chemical and environmental conditions to create life. And cultures across the world have used hot springs as Lazarus Pits. The Umpqua band of the Coquille people (who the hot springs are named after), drawn to its physical and meditative powers, practiced communing with both the past and the present here.

  1. "The Pacific Ring of Fire, or just Ring of Fire for short, is an area where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 40,000 km (25,000 mi) horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. The Ring of Fire has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes. It is sometimes called the circum-Pacific belt or the circum-Pacific seismic belt." [↩]
Fjällraven, Poler, Danner PROVIDED SOME OF THE EQUIPMENT AND FINANCIAL SUPPORT NECESSARY TO MAKE THIS OREGON HOT SPRINGS GUIDE POSSIBLE.