SEARCH CARBONDALE
Hot Springs
Delight in the Natural Wonder!
After a challenging day of hiking and climbing, biking, winter cross country skiing, or other outdoor activity, you can soak your sore muscles in a steaming hot springs pool!
Area hot springs have become popular year-round with visitors as well as locals. A dip into a pool of natural hot mineral spring water can provide soothing overall relaxation. Surrounded by rugged mountain peaks and spanning canyons, the views only add to the total rejuvenating and restorative experience.
Whether you prefer soaking during the mild summer or fall days and evenings, or would rather have an invigorating time in the brisk winter months with the contrast of steaming water next to snow-covered slopes, you are sure to enjoy the therapeutic qualities of a continually flowing natural hot spring.
One area spring is Penny Hot Springs, which is a granite section of the canyon cut by the Crystal River, marked by a turnout on the east side of Highway 133 a few hundred feet north of mile marker 55. The springs are named for Dan Penny who kept a small hotel on the railroad line upstream of Avalanche Creek.
Penny's guests would stay at his hotel and use the hot springs bathhouse - - one side for men, the other side for women. The tubs were marble, but the divider in the bathhouse only extended to the water surface, so bathing attire was prudent for all enjoying the hot water. The spring remained popular but obscure until the 1960's when young people began to bathe there au natural.
Nearby residents, offended by nudity and other unseemly acts, bulldozed the bathhouse and attempted to destroy the springs - once pouring tar into the pools, another time dumping large boulders into them. But there was no stopping the geothermal activity or the local hot springs’ enthusiasts who rebuilt the pools and fought to make them public. In the early 1990's, Pitkin County acquired the property and made the springs officially public. Swimsuits are officially required. To read more, you can visit Penny Hot Springs.
Area hot springs have become popular year-round with visitors as well as locals. A dip into a pool of natural hot mineral spring water can provide soothing overall relaxation. Surrounded by rugged mountain peaks and spanning canyons, the views only add to the total rejuvenating and restorative experience.
Whether you prefer soaking during the mild summer or fall days and evenings, or would rather have an invigorating time in the brisk winter months with the contrast of steaming water next to snow-covered slopes, you are sure to enjoy the therapeutic qualities of a continually flowing natural hot spring.
One area spring is Penny Hot Springs, which is a granite section of the canyon cut by the Crystal River, marked by a turnout on the east side of Highway 133 a few hundred feet north of mile marker 55. The springs are named for Dan Penny who kept a small hotel on the railroad line upstream of Avalanche Creek.
Penny's guests would stay at his hotel and use the hot springs bathhouse - - one side for men, the other side for women. The tubs were marble, but the divider in the bathhouse only extended to the water surface, so bathing attire was prudent for all enjoying the hot water. The spring remained popular but obscure until the 1960's when young people began to bathe there au natural.
Nearby residents, offended by nudity and other unseemly acts, bulldozed the bathhouse and attempted to destroy the springs - once pouring tar into the pools, another time dumping large boulders into them. But there was no stopping the geothermal activity or the local hot springs’ enthusiasts who rebuilt the pools and fought to make them public. In the early 1990's, Pitkin County acquired the property and made the springs officially public. Swimsuits are officially required. To read more, you can visit Penny Hot Springs.
