TRAVEL: Healing Waters Of North America By Peter Roos
Skin is our largest organ. It dispels waste through its pores and can absorb what touches its surface. We also sense temperature through our skin. Most of us spent the first nine months of our lives floating in water about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Many find floating in waters that feel hot is relaxing, even therapeutic. The chemical and mineral content of the waters is an important part too.
Prior to antibiotic medications, the sun, salt and spring water were felt to be powerful cures. The search for the fountain of youth brought Europeans to Florida in the first place, and a week at the beach is still thought of as a “healthy” vacation. A recently published book by Florida’s Healing Waters, by author Rick Kilby, published by University Press of Florida, Florida’s Healing Waters, presents wonderful details of the Gilded Age of Mineral Springs, Seaside Resorts and Health Spas with some great photos and more. Soaking in hot water for health has been around for centuries. On page 5 of the book is a photo of the Roman Baths in Bath, England, where it says the Celts soaked before the Romans arrived in 49 AD.
Renee and I have been natural hot springs enthusiasts for over 40 years. Our first experience was almost by accident. Renee and our 8-year-old son Jordan had joined me while I was working a consulting engagement at the San Francisco mint. On the weekend we left the city to visit wine country. We visited Berringer’s Winery and one other on our way north through Napa.
Looking for a room at the north end of the valley that night, we were referred to the Calistoga Spa. That was the beginning of a love affair with natural hot springs that has already spanned more than 40 years and has taken us from California to Alaska and from a hot pool at Doe Bay Resort and Retreat overlooking the San Juan Islands on Orca Island, to a hose-filled, and creek-side tub in Hot Springs, North Carolina. We even have a Classic Hot Spring Spa next to the banana plantation in our back yard, constantly set to 104 degrees. We soak in it two to three times per week.
Renee’s Native American studies group took her on a “journey of the waters” that expanded her understanding of the value of the minerals and elements in the water that help treat or “cure” various ills. Sulphur, while not our favorite, is a commonly found element from which a whole field of pharma has evolved. Lithium is also common, and springs high in lithium content are praised for anxiety relief and as mood enhancers.
In many places, the geological formations are such that hot water had been surfacing there since the beginning of recorded time. Hot springs are spiritual places to native peoples and were sources of healing and relaxation for all who knew enough to take advantage of them. Fifteen years ago, after her “journey of the waters” Renee decided we should tour hot springs in the mountains for our vacation that summer. We visited 19 different soaking spots in Colorado and New Mexico in three weeks. That was when we really learned the features we liked most and the attributes we did not care as much for. For us, we like it hot, at least 103 F.
Some hot spring sites are remote, accessible only by a long hike. Not being big hikers, we have bypassed most of those; however, our favorite was one of the most difficult to get to. Hot Springs Cove was billed as “probably the finest hot spring in North America” in a book on Vancouver Island in the bookstore on the ferry that takes you, your car and 20 semi-trailers from Vancouver to Nanaimo in an hour and a half or so. You then have to get yourself from the east coast to the west, which involves a drive similar in length to crossing Florida, but in the middle, you are at the entrance to a ski resort 10,000 feet above sea level. When you return to sea level and hit the Pacific, turn right. At the end of the road is Tofino, British Columbia. It looks like Key West might have 75 years ago. Boats go there at 10am and come back at 6pm. If you miss the boat, a seaplane may be available.
About an hour out of Tofino by motorboat, or 20 minutes by seaplane, British Columbia’s Hot Springs Cove Provincial Park sits on an Indian reservation, so there are no commercial features, just a dock and walkway through a virgin rainforest. Built by volunteers out of native red cedar trees, the 3-inch-thick cedar planks are aromatic, as you walk the path through gigantic virgin fern and towering red cedars, some so large it would take a dozen people holding hands to surround their trunks.
After an easy, and amazing, 1½ mile walk, you eventually glimpse the ocean through the trees. You also notice steam rising from a stream beside your path. At the cliff ahead, the steamy stream becomes a 110-degree waterfall into a very hot pool 20 feet below. Stone steps take you down the hill to sea level. There are three pools in all, the third of which has cooling waves from the Pacific spilling into it. That is the “entry” pool, averaging around 100 degrees. As bodies adjust, many visitors slowly edge closer to the source of the heat. Some stand under the waterfall. Often majestic bald eagles are flying overhead.
Hot springs experiences can vary from the comfort of commercial spas with luxury accommodations to the adventure of natural, undeveloped pools, on the side of streams in the unlikeliest of places. Some of our favorites offer more rustic accommodations. We are there for hot water and massage, not TV, email, internet. For example, we keep returning to Cottonwood Hot Springs, near Buena Vista, Colorado, which is totally disconnected from the world, when just a few miles away is the amazing, and totally connected Mount Princeton Hot Springs Resort.
Other favorites of ours include several that have been minimally and carefully developed to make them more accessible without destroying the natural feel. A great example is Strawberry Park Hot Springs, a few miles out of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. If you prefer the resort spa feel, check out Pagosa Hot Springs, Glenwood, or Iron Mountain Hot Springs. For more information check out the guidebooks “Hot Springs and Hot Pools of the Southwest,” Northwest, or whichever quadrant you are headed for. When you find a likely destination, “Google” it for recent reviews. There are plenty of details available about most of the ones you would want to visit.
