Pagosa Springs

Spent last night in Pagosa Springs, Colorado.  Roughly midway point of the trip, and in Pagosa Springs are what anybody who has just driven 1600 miles would appreciate:  hot mineral springs.

The town has what they call the "Mother Pool", where water flows out of ground at 144 degrees.  That is too hot, scalding really, so they let that water flow into a series of smaller pools.  The temperature of the smaller pools ranged from about 90 degrees up to 113 degrees yesterday.  90 is too cool to feel good.  113 is too hot for more than a few seconds.  Some of the middle pools, around 104 - 108 degrees, were just about perfect to soak out the kinks.  Felt kind of like Goldilocks as we searched for the just-right temperature.

The pools are along the banks of the river... so you can soak and listen to the river run by.




















According to Wiki entry on Pagosa Spings, the Ute name for the sulfur-rich springs was Pah gosah.  This is commonly translated in modern documents as "healing waters".  A Ute elder says the more accurate translation is "water (pah) that has a bad smell (gosah)."  After soaking for a few hours, both translations are on the money.   It is pretty smelly, but certainly healing!