Category: Articles & Tips

Saratoga, where the only thing more impressive than the soaking options is the area's soaking history. Native Americans, even if they were from warring tribes, used to settle down shoulder-to-shoulder into hot springs along the banks of the North Platte River here. Modern soakers can sit in the same riverbank pools as Native Americans did. They can also settle down into the quaintly dilapidated, open-air, free-to-the-public Hobo pool. Or the ginormous, 70-foot-long outdoor pool at the historically posh Saratoga Inn & Resort. Or, if the snowflakes are falling too fast and furious to sit out in the elements, try one of five teepee-covered pools (also at the Inn & Resort). While the Hobo Pool is my summer soaking preference (mostly because of that free admission), come winter the Saratoga Inn & Resort is worth almost any price. Numerous fireplaces and featherbeds piled high with wool Pendleton blankets ensure you'll be as warm and toasty outside the pools as when sitting in them. For those who feel they need to "deserve" a soak, there are 400 miles of snowmobile trails in the nearby Snowy Range and Sierra Madre Mountains and unlimited skiing and snowshoeing opportunities in the more than one million acres of the Medicine Bow National Forest.