Early winter sunbathing. Who would've thought, huh?
Like many of you I traveled home to see family last week for Thanksgiving. My hometown, where I shared turkey and all the fixin’s with my loved ones, is Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Glenwood is one of many geothermal hotspots throughout the Rocky Mountain region where water heated by our planet’s core seeps to the surface. Besides the commercial pools and vapor caves, nearly a dozen springs seep out of the Colorado River’s banks near town. And for me, a visit to Glenwood Springs isn’t really a “trip home” until I’m soaking neck deep in the algae-coated sulphur pools.
I brought two friends home with me, Reed and Sara, and as we visited with my parents, my mom told a story she loves to recount and I love to listen to: the beginning of my personal history with hot springs.
When I was a baby, she told my guests, she used to bring me down to the hot springs almost daily. She’d hold me in the hot pool and in the summer she’d adjust a sun hat so I could sleep. In the winter, she’d pull a wool beanie down over my ears so they wouldn’t freeze when the wind blew the steam away. I’d fall asleep almost instantly, except when the local older ladies who soaked daily would come over to goo and ga with me.
For me, this story explains why, on a road trip I’ll drive hundreds of miles out of my way through blizzards to swing by a hot springs; it explains why I am usually still soaking, squinty-eyed and smiling, hours after my companions have staggered hot and dizzy to the showers.
Hot springs are my second womb. They are my heaven on earth.
Crystal River, Heaven.
On Wednesday I soaked with friends and family in the commercial pools in Glenwood Springs along I-70. We sat chest deep in the 104-degree water with sunglasses on and chatted about who’s doing what where, and Uncle Joe’s dog, Chopper, and “did you hear about cousin Shawn…?” and so on. As other locals passed by en route to the locker rooms or the cooler pool (98 degrees) we exchanged “Happy Thanksgivings!” and “Gotten any turns yet?”
The pools weren’t just warming locals, though. Families on vacation from all over the country and world enjoyed the geothermal bath. Near us on the steps I heard one family speaking Russian, another chatted in an Asian language I couldn’t pinpoint, and many others remarked in English about how beautiful this place they’re visiting is.
I enjoy the social scene of the commercial pools. Like the public bath houses of Rome or Greece or one of the many other cultures who’ve enjoyed hot water communally, residents gather to catch up on news, medicate work-tired (or ski tired!) bodies, and bond with neighbors.
Engineering the perfect soak.
But I also enjoy the scenery and solitude experience of the non-commercial, wild springs that have been informally maintained for generations along the rivers. On Friday, en route back to Crested Butte, Reed, Sara and I stopped at Penny Hot Springs along the Crystal River between Carbondale and Redstone. Because the River is at its lowest in the winter, these springs are best in the late fall to early spring. In the summer they wash out in the high snow-melt river flows.
The springs are a 1 minute walk from a large pull-out. The view from the pools across the river is unparalleled: Mt. Sopris, the northernmost peak in the Elk Range, rises snowy out of the sagebrush and juniper foreground. Jagged sedimentary cliffs drop into the Crystal River. Behind us, on the other side of the road, is a climbing crag with single pitch sport and trad routes called The Narrows. Parking for The Narrows is the same as for the springs, so in the late fall climbers can be out of the harness and into their birthday suits in about 30 minutes.
Just like the monkeys.
As we walked down to the spring we passed a fellow soaker who said the river level had come up about 3 inches that day, so we’d have to block some of the channel to warm up the pools. The spring water at Penny comes out too hot for comfort, so ambitious lay-engineers have built rock and mud canals to direct river water into the springs. Before settling in for some relaxation I dropped a couple big stones into the largest cold-water channel to improve our mixture. Nonetheless, soaking in Penny Hot Springs is an interactive experience: the cold water settles to the bottom and freezes toes and legs, while the scalding hot water sits on top and leaves torsos and shoulders lobster-red. So, even after tinkering with the flows, we had to continually swirl and mix for the perfect bath.
Occasionally the mixture would maintain for a moment and I could surrender to this sanctuary of bliss as the sunlight danced off the water onto the shadowy undersides of the boulders around the pool. I thought of the Japanese snow monkeys in that movie Baraka. They look completely relaxed, utterly enlightened and wholly at peace. Good role models, those monkeys.
The sun ducked behind the hill, and in the shadows across the river a bighorn ram walked out from behind a juniper tree. The land the ram walked is a wildlife preserve of some sort on the backside of Mt. Sopris, so soakers can frequently view herds of elk or bighorn sheep. Downriver a hundred yards a fisherman cast spinners for rainbow trout.
As the air temps cooled off, we enjoyed some final relaxing moments, then hopped out, dried off and hiked to the car. I’m thankful for hot water. It felt good to be home again.
Bighorn ram enjoying the peace of a wildlife refuge on the southwest side of Mt. Sopris.
Sun. Water. Rock. In that order.
