Glenwood Springs: Colorado Hot Springs with a Silky Mineral Secret

Soaking in the mineral waters of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, feels distinctly different.

If you’ve spent time exploring Colorado’s hot springs, you may already know that no two springs are exactly alike. The water travels through different layers of rock on its journey underground, picking up minerals along the way. That unique geology creates a mineral profile—or, in a sense, a mineral “fingerprint”—for each hot spring.

And Glenwood Springs has a particularly luxurious one.

What Makes Glenwood Springs Water Different?

Like many of Colorado’s geothermal springs, the waters around Glenwood Springs contain familiar minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium, along with a variety of other naturally occurring minerals.

But one of the minerals that makes the Glenwood Springs experience especially interesting to me is silica.

Silica-rich thermal waters are often associated with a wonderfully smooth, almost silky sensation on the skin. If you have soaked in different hot springs around Colorado, you may notice that some waters simply feel different.

Glenwood is one of those places.

The water can have a soft, luxurious quality that is noticeably different from the mineral experience you find around Buena Vista and some of Colorado's other hot-springs regions. It is a perfect example of why we became so fascinated with recreating individual Colorado hot-spring mineral profiles at High Country Bath. A hot spring isn't simply hot water with minerals added—it is the particular combination of those minerals that gives each spring its character.

Where to Soak in Glenwood Springs

One of the things I love about Glenwood Springs is that you don't have just one way to experience its geothermal waters. You can choose everything from an enormous historic hot-springs pool to intimate soaking tubs overlooking the Colorado River.

Iron Mountain Hot Springs — My Favorite

If you ask me where I personally like to soak in Glenwood Springs, my answer is Iron Mountain Hot Springs. (Here is a photo of my son and me enjoying Iron Mountain Hot Springs after a bike ride up to the top of Maroon Bells - in Aspen.)

Iron Mountain sits along the Colorado River, surrounded by beautiful mountain scenery. Instead of one enormous swimming pool, you'll find a collection of smaller soaking pools at different temperatures. Four hot-spring sources supply its natural geothermal area, and the resort currently has 16 geothermal soaking pools, with temperatures ranging from about 98°F to 108°F.

But Iron Mountain has another reason to be such an interesting destination for mineral-water lovers.

Their adults-only WorldSprings area recreates the mineral compositions of famous hot springs from around the world. Rather than simply changing the temperature from pool to pool, Iron Mountain begins with freshwater and adds specific mineral formulations designed to mimic famous thermal waters.

You can soak in water inspired by places such as the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, the Dead Sea, Vichy in France, Hokkaido in Japan, and Banjar in Bali. There are also dedicated magnesium and potassium pools.

For someone like me who is fascinated by the differences between mineral waters, this is basically a playground.

And then there's the cold plunge.

I love alternating between the hot mineral pools and the cold water. Iron Mountain now has several cold-plunge options throughout the property, making it easy to add hot-and-cold contrast to your soaking experience.

Glenwood Hot Springs Resort — The Classic Glenwood Experience

For the iconic Glenwood Springs experience, there is Glenwood Hot Springs Pool at Glenwood Hot Springs Resort.

People have been coming here to soak since 1888. The resort's geothermal water comes from the Yampah Spring, which produces more than 3.5 million gallons of hot mineral water per day. The source water emerges at approximately 122°F before being cooled for the resort's different pools.

The enormous historic Grand Pool is kept at a comfortable soaking-and-swimming temperature, while the Therapy Pool is warmer at approximately 104°F.

More recently, the resort added the Yampah Mineral Baths, a beautiful collection of five pools with waterfalls, an infinity edge, a natural stone grotto and both warm and cold-water experiences. The pools range from the 52–60°F Inhale cold plunge all the way to approximately 100–104°F in the Cascade Waters.

So if your mental picture of Glenwood Hot Springs is one gigantic rectangular swimming pool, it's worth taking another look. There are now quite a few different ways to experience the water.

 

Bringing Glenwood Springs Home

Experiences like these inspired High Country Bath.

Our goal isn't to create another generic package of bath salts. We look at the mineral characteristics that make Colorado's different hot-springs regions distinctive and use those profiles as the inspiration for our mineral bath blends.

That means our Glenwood Springs-inspired blend shouldn't feel exactly like our Buena Vista-inspired blend—because the actual springs don't feel exactly the same either.

For Glenwood, that silky mineral character is an important part of the experience.

When you can't make the drive into the mountains, draw a warm bath, add your Glenwood Springs mineral soak and bring a little piece of Colorado hot-springs country home with you. We offer many of the Colorado hot springs blends, including one that is a perfect combination of all of them just called "The Hot Springs" blend (so you don't have to choose). We also have some aromatherapy oil based "Bath Oil Shots" that you can add to your soak to relax in lavender or scents like Colorado Blue Spruce and Pine. Come check them out at HighCountryBaths.com.

 

And if you can make the drive?

Go.

Try several different pools. Pay attention to how the water feels on your skin. Try the hot-and-cold contrast. And if you visit Iron Mountain, don't skip WorldSprings.

You may discover, as I did, that once you start paying attention to the minerals in the water, you never experience a hot spring quite the same way again.

High Country Bath
Inspired by the mineral waters of Colorado.