Introduction
H
ot 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 7