Last winter, as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to take hold of the world, a video hit the internet that started with the trickle of fresh, slow water. Words appeared on the screen:
“The wisdom of our ancestors that Mother Nature is the main source of well-being has never been more evident than it is today. “
People turned up hot springs all around. Australia. China. New Zealand. “Colorado, United States,” said the man from Springs Resort and Spa in Pagosa Springs.
This was a promotional video for the Global Wellness Institute’s Hot Springs Initiative, bringing together people from the industry to celebrate the benefits of soaking. A song played as people rejoiced in the steaming pools and baths, blissfully ignoring, it seemed, the crisis of the moment.
There was one word that Kim Marshall particularly liked. She lives in Los Angeles, where she hosts a popular wellness podcast and markets spas nationwide, including Springs Resort.
“Separated by oceans, connected by water,” Marshall recites from the song. “This is so true. And in Colorado you happen to be blessed.
Blessed with bubbling springs emerging from the cracks and fissures beneath the Rocky Mountains, deep within the Earth’s molten core. The water arrives heated and filled with minerals – sodium, potassium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus and lithium, among others.
Their properties are mysterious to most who encounter them. People “don’t know why they feel so good,” Marshall says. “They just know they feel so, so good.”
Welcome to the warm embrace of Colorado.
Hot springs are no better felt than at this time of illness and social and political stress. And they are not felt better than in winter.
“Being here in the winter is my favorite time,” says Aaron McCallister, general manager of Iron Mountain Hot Springs in Glenwood Springs. “While it might sound crazy at first, stepping into a hot pool when it’s 20 degrees outside is amazing.”
It helps explain the theme of this season guide. Here, we spotlight two dozen commercial hot springs across the state, options to accompany countless other dips known to locals but kept secret in the state’s wilderness. Hot springs are also plentiful that other rejuvenating outlets come winter in Colorado.
We wait all the offseason and wait a little longer in the ski lifts for the chance to hurtle down mellow slopes, to feel the fresh air on our smiling faces. More of us have taken our skis into the backcountry, to feel the added thrill of the rugged mountains. We could check OpenSnow.com for the daily snow forecast courtesy of Joel Gratz, the site’s founding meteorologist.
He also runs after powder. While he makes a seven to ten day forecast, he plans ski trips based on what he learns.
“It’s not just a business. It’s personal, ”Gratz says from his Boulder home.
“So I get up at 4 or 5 in the morning, I spend about two to two and a half hours researching the weather, then writing and publishing the forecast. And then, depending on the day, either I go out and try to take the first chair and run in the powder, or I run the business like a normal person running a business.
We get our winter rush in several ways. By snowmobile for example, or on frozen waterfalls, axes in hand, crampons on foot. Others are more than thrilled with a snowshoe hike or a slower afternoon of fishing on a frozen lake.
Or we’re more satisfied with just sipping hot chocolate while we shop in these party ski towns. We could bring our drink on a horse-drawn sleigh ride through enchanting meadows and woods, creating family memories.
And we can all enjoy a good bath. Wherever your winter adventures take you – there are plenty of other destinations and things to do in these pages – the hot springs are probably never far away.
As Deborah Frazier writes in her popular guide, “Hot springs are Colorado’s ocean.
It’s time to dive.
Statewide, operators will tell you hot springs are quieter in the winter, without families on vacation in the summer. They will tell you about this certain experience in winter, for lack of words.
“The snow and the snow-capped peaks all around, all of it aesthetic,” says Markus Van Meter from Ouray, where a large geothermal pool welcomes visitors to the city.
Says Scott Peterson of Mount Princeton Hot Springs Resort near Buena Vista: “Something about cold air, something about steam, something about snow falling on your head …”
Let Marshall, the Wellness Expert, help you.
“The secret hot spring sauce is the contrast bath,” she says. “If you really want to hit yourself with perks, you’re hot, cold, hot, cold. The juxtaposition is unparalleled.
Ouray and Mount Princeton are just a few choices along a 720 mile route laid by a marketing project called Colorado Historic Hot Springs Loop. The loop also includes Steamboat Springs, Pagosa Springs, and Glenwood Springs.
From the well-developed to the more raw and natural, from the views outside to the spa therapies inside, from the temperatures to the mineral blends, “each of them is truly unique,” says Vicky Nash, project coordinator.
“And a lot of these hot springs in western Colorado had a record breaking year last year,” she adds, referring to the height of the pandemic when people longed to escape. The hot springs “have had so many visits because people are so much more aware of the elements of health.”
Native Americans have always been in the know.
Before their withdrawal, the tribes knew the word “yampah” in Glenwood, which means “great medicine”. Today, the city claims the largest geothermal swimming pool in the world. The Utes knew the “pah gosa” along what we now call the San Juan River. It was a term for “bad smell”, for sulfur. Today, Pagosa claims the “mother spring”, known as the deepest mineral water well in the world.
The well, like hot springs everywhere, continues to soothe our troubled souls and repair our sore muscles and bones after long, hard, cold days.
It is therefore in Ouray.
“We are moving here because of the winter, not because of the summer,” says Van Meter. “We are a people who love skiing, ice climbing and mountaineering. And when we’re done, we love to soak.
Soaking remains at the heart of Colorado culture. It was a culture turned upside down in 2020.
Last year’s capacity restrictions were largely lifted as this winter approaches, though some remain, along with the reservation systems operators have launched to control crowds. While the Delta variant continues to cause concern, last year’s “know before you go” mantra continues through 2021.
“We’ll see what the future holds,” Peterson said from Mount Princeton, echoing concerns elsewhere.
But in hot springs, worries tend to dissipate.
