Destination: The Rockies : Hot Springs Eternal : Funky hot springs offer a warm welcome to weary skiers

A ski adventure, that’s what we were having.

Struggling up the side of Yellowstone National Park’s highest peak, Mt. Washburn, in the dead of winter, in snow conditions that varied from wind-hardened white marble to soggy oatmeal. Up 3,000 feet to a giddy 10,000 above sea level and down again. Over open rock and through thick forest deadfall, into glaring sun and driving snow, on ungroomed trails and no trails at all.

Now that’s skiing!

Some of us had climbing “skins” to keep our skis from back sliding, some did not. Some of us had aggressively sunny dispositions (a subcommittee of the skins group). Some of us were clinically depressed. Some eagerly launched into the telemark position at the narrowest suggestion of open slope; others searched for a couloir down which we could launch our leader, Montana historian Bill Lang.

Back in camp, as the temperature dropped below 0 degrees, we removed our sweaty-wet clothing for a freshly chilled set from the tent. In the “kitchen” we’d carved deep in the snow, we stood around drinking coffee and telling each other what a good time we were having. The skis--Epokes, Europas, old pine-tarred woodies--stood over to the side, thinking their own thoughts.

We were ostensibly searching for the route followed by the first skiers to circumnavigate the park in winter, an 1887 expedition led by Frederick Schwatke. In darker moments, we consoled ourselves by imagining the misery of those early travelers, with their 12-foot wood-plank skis, their lack of artificial fleece and Gore-Tex.

But on the last day, the robust and cheerful surface began to crack (quite literally, especially around the lips). A couple of our party decided that while the rest of us searched the mountain, they’d study thermal conservation in their sleeping bags.

How do you salvage a skiing holiday when the weather, the snow conditions, the frailty of the human body and the failure to pack Prozac all conspire against good cheer?

Here’s how. On our last day, Lang drove us to the Gardiner River near the park’s north entrance. There, a considerable hot spring dumps into the river, creating a slash of warm water that starts strong near the west bank and gets cooler as you edge out along a shelf into the current.

Strip, dip, pick your temperature, lie back and let the Boiling River, as it’s called, flow over you. Snow can be whirling, wind can be howling, your knees can be aching. Who cares? Immerse yourself so only your nose sticks out of the water.

Now, we all agreed telepathically, that’s skiing!

My first Gardiner River poach occurred 15 years ago--there have been many since. Identifying geothermal cracks in the Earth’s crust is now a key element of my research into winter travel in the Rockies. Helicopter skiing in Canada? Luxury digs at Aspen? Gourmet meals at Deer Valley? Fine, but where is the hot spring?

Everywhere it seems. Nature has flung them all over the Rocky Mountain map, like a Jackson Pollock painting. Generally, the style isn’t posh--there is nothing here to match the resorts of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., or Hot Springs, Ark. Often they are no more than a cloud of steam, hiking required, clothing optional, companionship (both human and microbial) unpredictable. But there are few winter treats to match, for instance, a visit to Chico Hot Springs in Montana after cross-country skiing in northern Yellowstone National Park.

When you work your body half to death punching a trail through the snow; when you crunch your numb fingers in the bindings and break a tip on a tree; when the car slides into a snowbank and the locals who help pull you out laugh behind their gloves--it’s only a prelude. We abuse ourselves in order to be soothed and comforted. The hot springs await you.

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Like many of the larger hot springs in the region, Chico is slightly more than a hot hole in the mountainside. There are swimming pools and hot tubs and rooms for the night, but it’s nothing to look at on the outside--a mixture of creaky old tumbledown hotel and dull new Bauhaus condos.

Inside, though, Chico is one of the best. It has a gourmet restaurant, funky rooms with antique furniture, a colorful, gregarious owner, a starlight ceiling of sky above the big pool, and even the chance that one might see a celebrity (Los Angeles stars with a hankering for silt on their boots favor the area).

If a hot springs is anything more than a fissure amid the pine needles, expect accommodations and facilities that are simple, and probably old. Early on, Victorian-era visitors to the Rocky Mountains were enticed by the “medicinal” properties of hot springs, and some of the buildings erected in the stagecoach days are still standing, barely.

Many of the hot spring resorts seem to be in a perpetual state of repair--paint jobs under way, concrete cracking, pipes exposed, benches looking the worse for wear. The hot water that gurgles up through these cracks in the crust can carry all sorts of geological enzymes from the Earth’s hot innards--calcium carbonate, arsenic, lithium and sometimes radioactivity--and they have a way of aging a place. If you want to know what’s in the water, just ask. You’ll get a long list of chemical compounds. At places like New Mexico’s Pah Tempe, people bring along bottles so they can take the stuff home and drink it.

For all the sybaritic reputation of the hot tub crowd, these hot springs aren’t likely to be the Turkish baths of yore. Many offer a private hot tub for two or three, but the shared facilities attract a mix of people to match the mixed up architecture.

There are health addicts who want to drink it as well as sit in it; there are old folks who want to feel a few pounds lighter on their arthritic bones; there are kids who twist their flexible and springy bones into the curves of a tubular slide. And there are vigorous people-perpetually-training-for-something, who allow themselves a warm bath only after skating 40 miles and ice-climbing the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

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As baby boomers age, though, the ratio of time in the powder (skiing) to time in the chowder (hot springs) is shifting. Soothing weightlessness, a quiet sky full of stars, the sense of the Earth’s hot heart protecting you from the winter chill, calm conversation and contemplation--the warm embrace of mineral water is becoming an end in itself.

The following list is far from comprehensive. There are hundreds of public and private hot pools in the Rocky Mountain region, many of them bigger and fancier than those listed here, and many more primitive, smaller and remoter.

These facilities have some age, and the character that goes with it (as well as the characters you’ll find in it). They are open year-round, and in the winter they get their share of skiers, as well as those looking to preemptively soothe aching muscles that they would have experienced if they ever took the skis off the car.

Chico Hot Springs, Mont. A regional favorite, located north of Yellowstone National Park in the Paradise Valley. A big outdoor pool, colorful owners (Eve and Michael Art) and an excellent restaurant. Pool and hot tub temperatures range from 90-108 degrees. Skiing in the area includes cross-country in Yellowstone and downhill at Bridger Bowl (one hour away) and Big Sky (two hours).

Information: Chico Hot Springs, Drawer D, Pray, MT 59065; telephone (406) 333-4933 or (800) 468-9232. Winter spa rates $3 per person (6 and under free); May-Nov., $4.75 per person (children 7-12, $3.25); seniors $2, year-round. Accommodations: Chico Hot Springs Resort has a range of options, $38-$275 per person double occupancy.

Hot Springs State Park, Wyo. A huge hot spring feeds three bathing and swimming facilities and two hotels in this state park on the banks of the Big Horn River.

Star Plunge has indoor and outdoor slides and pools, steam room and Jacuzzi. Pools around 95-98 degrees. Hot Springs Water Park also has indoor and outdoor slides and pools, sauna, steam room and massage. Pools around 90-94 degrees. The State Bath House is located between the two commercial pools and has a shallow soaking pool and private baths.

Information: Star Plunge, P.O. Box 627, Hot Springs State Park, Thermopolis, WY 82443; tel. (307) 864-3771; $6 per person (4 and under, $2). Hot Springs Water Park (within Hot Springs State Park), P.O. Box 750, Thermopolis, Wyo. 82443; tel. (307) 864-9250; $6 per person (kids 4-5, $2.50; seniors $5). State Park Bath House; tel. (307) 864-3765; admission free. Accommodations: Holiday Inn, P.O. Box 1323, Thermopolis, Wyo. 82443; tel. (307) 864-3131; winter rates, $48 per person ($6 each additional person in a room). Hot Springs Super 8, P.O. Box 569; tel. (307) 864-5515; $36.88 per person ($3 each additional person).

Indian Springs Resort, Colo. Only 45 minutes west of Denver, on Interstate 70. From its 1905 main building to its tropically vegetated swimming pool (92-97 degrees), it’s a winner. Caves have been dug underground for sex-segregated nude soaking pools, shadowy and monastic. Skiers returning to Denver from such resorts as Aspen and Breckinridge stop here for a soak.

Information: Indian Springs Resort, P.0. Box 1990, Idaho Springs, CO 80452; tel. (303) 567-2191. Spa rates: pools, $6.50 per person; cave baths, $9.50 per person; private indoor bath, $9.50 per hour; private outdoor hot tub or Jacuzzi, $12 per hour. Group rates available. Accommodations: Variety of options, $43-$70 per room, pool use free.

Ojo Caliente, N.M. Ojo claims to be the oldest occupied hot spring in the country. It’s developed a reputation as a place people come to “take the cure” with mineral baths, lithia water (containing lithium salts) and arsenic baths. There’s a large outdoor pool (101-113 degrees), a spring grotto and private baths. Skiers from Taos and Santa Fe come here.

Information: Ojo Callente, P.O. Box 68, Ojo Caliente, NM 87549; tel. (505) 583-2233. Spa rates: mineral pools, $8 per person, per hour weekdays, $10 on weekends; private tubs, $3 more. Accommodations: $46-$90 for a room and pool pass.

Pah Tempe, Utah. A series of pools by the Virgin River. The hot water cascades down the slippery bank to the river, and you can slide down too. The spa/bed & breakfast nearby offers hot spring grottoes and a conventional hot spring pool. Pah Tempe is not far from cross-country skiing at Cedar Breaks National Monument, and a 1 1/2-hour drive from downhill skiing at the smallish Brian Head ski resort.

Information: Pah Tempe, 825 N. 800 East 35-4, Hurricane, UT 84737; tel. (801) 635-2879. Spa rates: $10 per person on week days; $5 on Saturday. Accommodations: $45-$55 per person, including breakfast and hot springs.