The Mother Spring

The “Mother Spring” is located in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and is the deepest geothermal well in the world. It is deeper than 1,000 feet and the water temperature is 135 to 140 degrees F. Supposedly, it is the geothermal source of all the Pagosa Springs hot springs sites. The Mother Spring is within the boundaries of the “Springs Resort” which has a least 50 hot springs pools of varying temperatures. It is a nice facility but very pricey, a $69 entry for 20 pools and $109 for all the pools access. I chose to go to the free one called “Nathan’s Hippy Dip” which has about 7 pools and is right next to the San Juan River in downtown Pagosa Springs.

The Mother Spring has a real presence, the bluish, somewhat milky mineral color of the slightly sulfur smelling water with the roiling steam emanating from the surface. It was a Ute sacred healing site and also a contested and fought over place between the Ute and Navajo tribes. Even though I don’t like the slight smell of sulfur, I find the water to be very healing to the body tissues because the sulfur has anti-inflammatory properties.