Strawberry Hot Springs is just a few miles outside of Steamboat Springs and the drive there is beautiful. See the ski runs on that mountain?

Bob and I scheduled 1 hour massages at Strawberry Hot Springs. There are two separate massage huts built into the landscape. This was my hut. I felt like a hobbit:

My hut was built on top of a spring with 140 degree water, so the slate floors were naturally heated by the water below, as was the entire room. Strawberry Hot Springs runs off the grid so it was pretty cool to have my hut heated by water.

The springs have natural mineral water and there are several pools to soak in- the coolest of the hot pools is 102 degrees. Have I mentioned clothing is optional after dark?

See the pool with the ice on it? Well, it feeds into another pool below that was open for swimming. Bob was brave and climbed right in. I stood 2 steps deep in the water and that was enough for me. I made Bob promise not to pull me in and he stuck to his promise by not pulling me into the cold water. He carried me instead. I’m pretty sure I yelled “Oh gosh it is 8 degrees Celsius in here!” (So cold that I couldn’t even think in Fahrenheit.)

We climbed back into the hot water and soaked for about 45 minutes before heading back into town. By the time we left it was dark (still no naked people though). As we walked on a trail to get back to our car we saw the resident fox!

And now some random photos of nearby mountains:

In the photo below, those aren’t cows at the base of the mountain, they are buffaloes. Bob yelled at them as we drove by: “You suck this year!”.