Colorado's Hot Springs

Deborah Frazier

Description

COLORADO’S HOT SPRINGS is an entertaining, comprehensive guide to the state's sweet soaking sites and their histories. The photographs capture each spring's unique character and beauty. Each chapter blends descriptions of the warm water wonders with stories about the unique characters, events, and ancient use by Native Americans. The springs are Colorado's warm water ocean and Debbie visited each one. This all new, up-to-date guide profiles forty-four hot springs, providing descriptions, contact information, directions, maps, photographs, and historical notes.
Wiesbaden Hot Springs and Lodgings
625 5th Avenue
Ouray, CO 81427
[phone]
www.wiesbadenhotsprings.com
Open to the public and guests. Lodge with outdoor hot springs swimming pool and a private soaking pool, and a subterranean vapor cave.
What to Know: Open to the public and guests. Lodge with outdoor hot springs swimming pool and a private soaking pool, and a subterranean vapor cave.
Where: In the town of Ouray, turn east off Main Street (US 550) at 6th Ave. Drive two blocks and the Wiesbaden is at the northeast corner of 6th Ave. and 5th St.
Surrounded by towering peaks, the Wiesbaden Hot Springs has the feel of a European spa in the Alps.
The outdoor swimming pool and soaking pools are lovely, but the Wiesbaden’s heart and soul shimmer in a large cavern be¬neath the lodge. Water pours from a spring at about 118°F to fill a soaking pool and emanate steam that fills the bedroom-sized chamber. Water from a cold springs is added to the soaking pool to cool the temperature to about 108°F. In the quiet of the nature-made alcove, the rhythmic pulse of the spring is the only sound. The unscented vapor, the heat, and the pool let soakers merge with the earth’s breath.
No wonder the Wiesbaden’s springs were part of the last par¬cel of land relinquished by the Colorado Utes. “Shining Moun¬tains” was the Ute description of the San Juan Mountains, which surround Ouray, sited at 7,760 feet. Those same shining mountains loom above the Wiesbaden
Legends and lore about experiences within the dark, misty chamber abound with tales that speak of healing restoration and physical revival. Native Americans fre¬quent the Wiesbaden for healing ceremonies. Guests have come from Qatar, Europe, and Asia to soothe body and soul.
“The Wiesbaden cave has a history of spirituality, which gives a strong presence now,” says owner Linda Wright-Minter. The Wiesbaden asks that quiet be maintained so all can enjoy the peace and tranquillity.
Linda makes no claims about guests’ experiences. “It is whatever you get out of it.” But Linda does say, “There’s no other place like this.”
That’s what Linda decided when she first visited with her husband in 1978 and bought the Wiesbaden. There was no “For Sale” sign. For years, she cleaned the vapor cavern and pool herself as a morning prayer. And she’s turned away million dollar purchase offers from folks with visions of elaborate, exclusive resorts. “I want to keep it so the people who need it can afford it,” she says.
Northern Colorado (Interstate 70 and North)
Juniper Hot Springs
Strawberry Park Hot Springs
Old Town Hot Springs
Steamboat Springs Mineral Springs Walking Tour
Hot Sulphur Springs Resort and Spa
Eldorado Springs
Indian Springs Resort
Yampa Spa and Hot Springs Vapor Caves
Glenwood Hot Springs Pool
South Canyon Hot Springs
West-Central Colorado (Interstate 70 South to US 50)
Penny Hot Springs
Avalanche Ranch
Conundrum Hot Springs
Cottonwood Hot Springs
Mt. Princeton Hot Springs Resort
Antero Hot Springs Cabins
Treehouse Hot Springs
Alpine Hot Springs Hideaway
Creekside Hot Springs
Salida Hot Springs Aquatic Center
Cement Creek Ranch
Waunita Hot Springs Ranch
Desert Reef Beach Club
Dakota Hot Springs
Southwest Colorado (US 50 and South)
Orvis Hot Springs
Ouray Hot Springs Pool
Wesbaden Hot Springs Spa and Lodge
Box Canyon Lodge and Hot Springs
Twin Peaks Motel
4UR Ranch
Dunton Hot Springs
Joyful Journey at Mineral Hot Springs Spa
Valley View Hot Springs
San Dunes Swimming Pool
Colorado Gators Reptile Park
Splashland Hot Springs
Rainbow Hot Springs
Healing Waters Resort & Spa
The Springs Resort and Spa
Piedra River Hot Springs
Overlook Hot Springs
Pinkerton Hot Springs
Trimble Spa and Natural Hot Springs

Sujets

• Special Interest
• History of Colorado
• Travel
• Colorado

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781941821381
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Colorado s HOT SPRINGS

THIRD EDITION
DEBORAH FRAZIER
Text and photographs 2014 by Deborah Frazier
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
George, Deborah Frazier, 1948-
Colorado s hot springs / Deborah Frazier. - Third edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-941821-13-8 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-941821-38-1 (e-book)
1. Hot springs-Colorado. I. Title.
GB1198.3.C6F73 2014
551.2 309788-dc23
2014017811
Design: Vicki Knapton
Published by WestWinds Press An imprint of

P.O. Box 56118 Portland, Oregon 97238-6118 503-254-5591 www.graphicartsbooks.com
Dedication
To those long gone who loved the hot springs.
To the Utes, who showed the weak and weary the healing waters. The Utes, the springs first, longest, and best guardians, who shared the springs and the healing with other Native Americans and the early Europeans.
To those who introduced me to Colorado and nature s wonders-Dale, Barb, Dana, and Leigh Romsdal. And, most important, they taught me to preserve the beauties.
To Maria Avila and Dean Krakel for patient and kindly picture editing.
To my hot springs traveling buddy Ann Imse.
To the great historians, including Patricia Limerick and Glenn Morris, who taught me to question traditional histories and dig until I found the uncomfortable truths.
And to Molly Peck, Peter M. Kelly, Peggy Strain, Sheila Adler, and Shelley Lazear, the bright stars by which I navigate.
May we all love and protect Colorado s glorious wild places for the generations to come.
Contents
Overview Map
Introduction
Northern Colorado (Interstate 70 and North)
Juniper Hot Springs
Strawberry Park Hot Springs
Old Town Hot Springs
Steamboat Springs Mineral Springs Walking Tour
Hot Sulphur Springs Resort and Spa
Eldorado Swimming Pool
Indian Hot Springs
Radium Hot Springs
Yampah Spa and Hot Springs Vapor Caves
Glenwood Hot Springs Pool
South Canyon Hot Springs
West-Central Colorado (Interstate 70 South to US 50)
Penny Hot Springs
Avalanche Ranch
Conundrum Hot Springs
Cottonwood Hot Springs
Mount Princeton Hot Springs Resort Spa
Antero Hot Springs Cabins
Treehouse Hot Springs
Alpine Hot Springs Hideaway
Creekside Hot Springs
Salida Hot Springs Aquatic Center
Cement Creek Ranch
Waunita Hot Springs Ranch
Desert Reef Hot Spring
Dakota Hot Springs
Southwest Colorado (US 50 and South)
Orvis Hot Springs
Ouray Hot Springs Pool
Wiesbaden Hot Springs Spa and Lodgings
Box Canyon Lodge Hot Springs
Twin Peaks Lodge Hot Springs
4UR Ranch
Dunton Hot Springs
Joyful Journey Hot Springs
Valley View Hot Springs
Sand Dunes Swimming Pool
Colorado Gators Reptile Park
Splashland
Rainbow Hot Springs
Healing Waters Resort Spa
The Springs Resort and Spa
Overlook Hot Springs Spa
Piedra River Hot Springs
Pinkerton Hot Springs
Trimble Spa and Natural Hot Springs
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
The Hot Springs of Colorado
Introduction
Hot springs are Colorado s ocean.
The bubbles whisper. The warm mist beckons. The humid heat embraces.
The state s infinite Rocky Mountain panoramas lack little-except a sea, an ocean, or some such grand expanse of water. Alpine lakes are spectacular and foot-freezing cold. The hot springs enfold the visitor with balmy mist and soothing heat that dispel the frigid fingers of winter.
There s no disloyalty to Colorado s grandeurs in longing for the moody sea or the rhythmic sigh of waves on a shore. Perhaps it s a primal quest for the pre-birth amniotic state or a cosmic yen to join the earth in a warm communion.
Within the hot springs quiet and foggy corners is the ocean s gift: a muffling of noise and other sensory clatter. The mind wanders its own waterborne course of dreams, life puzzles, and fancies. The buoyancy takes over the burden of life s inevitable loads.
Colorado s hot springs number in the hundreds, counting small seeps, tiny trickles, and secret springs with undisclosed locations. In Steamboat Springs and Glenwood Springs, the springs count is more than a hundred each, but most are too small for a soak.
Colorado s large springs number ninety-three and are strewn like a pirate s treasure west of Interstate 25. The pages ahead chronicle the forty-four that welcomed guests in 2014.
The other sixty major springs are nearly all on private land and include those that feed small personal pools, boarded up commercial spas, and springs plugged with cement to stop trespassing bathers.
The Colorado Geological Survey periodically checks the springs and says there s been little change in temperature or minerals since they started testing in the 1920s. The later surveys were done to assess geothermal energy potential in the state. Professional geologists share with simple soakers a curiosity about the springs.
Among the hot springs that are open to the public, there are six people s springs that are free-located on public land, undeveloped, and primitive. Clothing is optional. There s Conundrum, Penny, Piedra, Radium, Rainbow, and South Canyon.
The uncounted springs beyond the official tallies are the secret springs not listed in geological surveys, and known only to locals and property owners. They include the small pools alongside rivers and in cow pastures. Some cause patches of blue ice on ski slopes. Their locations aren t disclosed to strangers. Fishermen sometimes stumble upon them as do rafters, hikers, and hunters. The pools are often on private land, so there s rarely a friendly welcome for trespassing bathers.
In 2014, at least three undeveloped springs were closed and up for sale. The outcome will be in the next edition of this book.
Springs come and go. In the past two decades, a half dozen or so hot springs on private land were bulldozed out of existence because owners wearied of the trash, all-night parties, and rude trespassers. For instance, a hot springs spa in Glenwood along the Colorado River was plowed over by its owner, a mining company. The spa had opened there in 1896 with the county sheriff as the owner. In the 1940s, the Saturday Evening Post recommended the spa as one of the best places in Colorado. All gone.
On the other hand, seven new springs have opened in the last 10 years: Avalanche Ranch near Glenwood Springs; Antero, Alpine, Creekside, and Treehouse near Mount Princeton; Overlook in Pagosa Springs; and Juniper Hot Springs near Craig.
Like the state s fifty-three peaks that are 14,000 feet or the fourteen major rivers in Colorado, the hot springs are far-flung. No two look the same or have identical minerals, but the water is always warm and people have been soaking there for centuries.
History s Stage and Crystal Ball
Hot springs have been part of nearly every historical twist and turn in Colorado s past. Centuries before European explorers arrived on this continent, springs were used by Native Americans for rituals and ceremonies. Spirituality and steam were one. The waters were part of healing, strengthening, and affirming the life-giving connection with the earth. The Colorado Utes, the Navajo, Arapaho, and Cheyenne, and, later, many other tribes shoved west by European settlers, cherished the waters as sacred. Each spring has Ute stories-given by elders to tribal members even today. The hot springs were among the last parcels of land the Utes surrendered.

Accounts written by non-historians in many hot springs towns describe the Colorado Utes giving the hot springs to settlers. Other stories refer to Native Americans leaving on an annual migration, but mysteriously never returning. That s not what happened.
The Utes and other Native Americans were removed, at gunpoint in some cases, by the US Army in the late 1800s. Settlers, miners, and homesteaders started claiming hot springs from the 1860s on. Manifest Destiny, gold strikes, flight from the industrialized Northeast and emigrants fleeing the impoverished post-Civil War South, the railroads stretching west, and the tidal wave of immigration from Europe created pressures that broke treaty after treaty with the Utes. Both the pre-statehood territorial government and the US Army ignored extensive squatting on Indian land long before 1880. The Utes Must Go, echoed from Colorado s Governor John Evans through the halls of government, from church pulpits, newspapers, and land speculation offices.
So, the Utes did go to reservations in southwest Colorado and another in Utah in the late 1800s. The Utes didn t give the springs away or just leave, contrary to many local histories. A powerful invader took the springs from them. And many Utes died defending their property rights.
The Utes and other Native Americans still visit many hot springs in the state, often in the off-season for privacy. The visits are often for spiritual, not recreational, purposes. Native Americans connections to the hot springs and the spiritual realm they represent have endured despite years of exile and loss. Many hot springs owners embrace the visits and honor the descendants. So, when you visit please respect the first owners and their ceremonies as you would a Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, or Buddhist prayer service.
Those Who Came Later
Like the Utes before them, explorers, trappers, miners, and settlers sought solace in the soothing waters. The famed Fremont expedition, which mapped ore loads, put a few hot springs on the charts. Other explorers mapped Colorado s rivers and streams, the geology, and the vegetation. The trappers used that information to find beaver, otter, and fox. The miners came in droves, answering the call of gold and silver.
All of the springs are in western Colorado and many are close to the mightiest gold