Ten Thousand Waves
On Tuesday this week Robert and I went to a wonderful spa up in the nearby Sangre de Christo range, Ten Thousand Waves. It was my birthday present and the earliest we could get in. If you want to go, plan ahead. Even now in not-tourist season they are booking more than 30 days out.
From the lower parking lot guests ascend to the main entrance via a beautiful wooded trail. Once onsite, visitors can enjoy a serene facility with koi ponds, waterfalls, warm fires, and plenty of private changing rooms.
Robert had booked us massages. At the front desk, we were supplied with kimonos and shown the way to the locker rooms where we could change clothes and store our electronic devices. After a brief wait beside a gentle fire, I was introduced to my masseuse and escorted down a maze of little hallways and stairs to a relaxing nook with diffused natural light and massage table.
For after our massages, Robert reserved a hot tub. Anyone who gets a massage at Ten Thousand Waves is welcome to partake in the facility’s “Grand Bath” a communal hot tub with sauna and cold plunge. In addition there are private hot tubs with the same set of offerings. Ours, Waterfall, had stairs down to a jetted, spacious hot tub. We were told that we would get a call on the intercom 15 minutes before our 90 minute session was over. The attendant also mentioned that the jets on the hot tub would run for 15 minutes at the press of a button next to the intercom. Almost immediately we climbed into the tub and started the jets. Those first 15 minutes stretched a long time, almost endless. Just hot water, Robert, some boulders, trees, little patches of snow, and bubbles.
We spent the next hour alternating between sauna and hot tub with brief visits to the cold plunge. The high temperature was in the low 40s and there was little direct sunshine anywhere. The cold plunge, a 4’2” cylindrical depression filled with cold water fed by a small waterfall, took a few moments to get used to and made the sauna extremely inviting. Suddenly the intercom informed us that it was nearly time to go. Those last 15 minutes passed in a blink and we were back in the real world shuffling to the locker room in our kimonos.
