Some Like It Hot History-Rich And Thermal-Laden Western Montana Is The Mecca For Hot Springs Enthusiasts

So far, so good. We pull up in front of a sign on Forest Road 106. It is the first sign of any kind that we have seen in 15-odd miles of scrub pine and high, wet pastures.

We turned off the highway some time ago, saying to ourselves, we’ll follow it out as far as we can comfortably go, and if we have to, we can always turn around.

If we have read the map correctly, side road 106 cuts a triangle off from Route 43 just before it rises to Chief Joseph Pass, crosses over to Lost Trail Pass and down into Route 93 and the lovely Bitterroot Valley of southwestern Montana.

The sign says Gibbons Pass, elevation 6,941 feet, and it tells a story. We are standing on the Continental Divide, driving on the original Lewis and Clark trail, on the first road by which automobiles could cross into southwestern Montana from the Big Hole Valley - a historic pass indeed!

Continuing on, suddenly there is another sign: “This road is not maintained for passenger vehicles.”

No matter, we say, for experienced mountain drivers like us. A chance to use the old skills once more! But the gravel road no longer exists. Huge granite boulders the size of microwave ovens form a mere semblance of roadbed.

And on the left the land has fallen away completely. No turnarounds and no backups anymore. One bad gouge in our car’s underbelly could leave us sitting here for days. But just ahead as the tumbled slash of boulders thins out, I see the slimmest strip of golden tinsel and know that this is our road down into Sula.

I grip my knuckles around the safety bar and let them grow white (a signal to my spouse that heroics of driving style are not required on a one-lane road with infinite free fall below) and we slowly make our way home to Camp Creek Inn.

This is, after all, what we had in mind - an adventure in Montana, but a gentle adventure, independent and suited to the quirks our bodies have acquired over the years.

No matter what road we travel in Western Montana, the land is continually beautiful, and I experience an inner solace of peace and elation. The landscape is a succession of one valley surrounded by mountains followed by another and then another, so that rising out of one valley is something like taking off in a plane, leaving behind an ever-widening vista. But at the top, instead of taking off completely, we descend into the embrace of still another valley, always of changing perspective and of shifting shadow and light.

Interstate 15 running south from Butte to the Idaho border, with the Pioneer Mountains to the west and the Ruby Range to the east, ranks among the most glorious freeways in America. There is little traffic and no small industry of tin-roofed shops, gas stations and warehouses tailing along the road out of the cities. Except for market towns such as Kalispell and Great Falls there is little sprawl in Montana.

Collecting the towns and rivers and mountains into a whole are these quiet, beauteous ribbons of wide-curving road.

The truth is that we plan our itinerary so as to visit a number of thermal hot water spas, rather like pilgrims traveling to the holy sites. But at the spas it is the body as well as the soul which receives rest and comfort!

Unlike European spas, whose atmospheres seem always to be touched with the snobbery of the leisure class who visited them in the 19th century, the spas of our western mountain states are thoroughly comfortable and democratic in spirit.

Each spa is unique in character and offers affordable overnight accommodations. Use of the waters themselves may be downright cheap, even if you don’t stay overnight.

Best of all, for those who may be sensitive to chlorine, a new law in Montana sets special standards for thermal hot water establishments: No chemical treatment of commercial hot springs is required if there is a) sufficient volume of flow that the water is exchanged every eight hours and b) if the pool is drained and cleaned every 72 hours.

Lost Trail Hot Springs, on Route 93 at the head of the Bitterroot Valley, has modern rustic cabins and an adjacent RV park. To the south run whitewater stretches of the Salmon River in northern Idaho, to the north lies the Bitterroot Valley, once full of the fruit orchards of early settlers, now the center of the log home industry.

We paddle lazily through the long outdoor pool at 105 degrees. Then we “rest” and chat with another visitor indoors in the whirlpool at 105 degrees. Then out to the pool again.

Afterward we “rest” still more upstairs in the bar. Someone calls out that an elk cow and her calf are standing at the big iron gate in back of the pool. We go to the windows to have a look, just making out our visitors before dark covers their forms.

Boulder Hot Springs, three miles south of Helena and an hour north of Butte, looks out over Peaceful Valley with its grand hotel facade. A short piece down the road and 12 miles up is another image of things that once were, the silver mining boom town, now ghost town, of Elkhorn.

One wing of the hotel is refinished with charming, high-ceilinged guest rooms, We are carefully solicited by staff concerning our wishes for breakfast and a delicious morning meal is cooked to order.

The spa water is fine; a smallish outdoor swimming pool at about 100 degrees is complemented by old-fashioned hot and cold plunges in the indoor pool rooms. One can order a massage.

It is wonderful, I find, to bathe in the Scandinavian fashion. When the body is heated through completely I can enter the cold pool without feeling any chill. Back and forth a few times between hot and cold, and I feel completely refreshed without being enervated.

White Sulphur Springs is in the middle of Montana near the confluence of Route 89 and Route 12. The town is western and plain and the Hot Springs Motel is plainer than plain, but a surprise awaits the visitor in a courtyard not visible from the road.

An exquisite hot pool fed by a fountain splaying forth in the middle is faced with handsome wall murals of native animals and of Indians celebrating the “Blessing of the Waters.” Inside the spa building is a soak pool with still hotter water.

We move quietly back and forth between the pools, listening in on the neighbor talk of two rancher couples in town for the warm baths, a massage, and dinner with friends.

Fairmont Hot Springs is different from other hot spas in Montana. The water is chlorinated, as indeed it must be, for both indoor and outdoor pools are huge and can’t be drained overnight. And the Fairmont is a large resort complex with attached golf course, adjacent RV park and campground, live entertainment, coffee shop and dining room, all managed by a professionall staff.

We stay there for several days because the Fairmont is midway between Butte and Anaconda, a mile and a half off Interstate 90. It is also near Deer Lodge, Georgetown Lake and Phillipsburg. In short, it’s a prime excursion center and a chance to come home each night to a warm soak, a good dinner, and bed.

There are other compensations, too. The indoor pools are open 24 hours to resort guests. One night at midnight, I pad downstairs and swim quietly up and down the length of the pool. There is no one else in the huge hall except the night guard, and a fellow dabbling his feet in the hot soak pool, playing lonesome snatches of song on a guitar. Afterwards I drift upstairs into bed.

The scenic road to Quinn’s Hot Springs winds west along Route 200 and 135 north of Missoula, past lazy curves of the Flathead and Clark Fork rivers. It’s a low-priced, old-shoe type of place whose major addition in the last few years has been to double the size of the dance floor.

People from Spokane and Missoula come here for a weekend escape and locals come for a soak and dinner at the weekend supper club. There’s a campground and very plain motel accommodations.

To get to Elk Horn Hot Springs, we head west out of Dillon on Route 278, one of those exultant soaring roads of the spirit.

Elk Horn’s location high in the Pioneer Mountains is perhaps the loveliest of all Montana’s spa sites. There’s a historic lodge from the 1920’s, two hot pools outdoors in the midst of the pines, and a steam pool in the spa building.

Sadly, on the day we visit, there are serious problems with the cleanliness of the pools, and with the maintenance of the resort. Prospective visitors shouldn’t give up on Elk Horn, but should inquire carefully ahead of time about current conditions.

Farther on around the bend on Route 278 is Jackson Hot Springs. For years it lay archaic and scarcely visited in the faraway, dusty ranch town of the same name. But then came new owners and a new influx of funds.

Accommodations now range from simple rooms to log cabins with their own fireplaces. A year-round chef and full-service restaurant enhance the old lodge dance hall with Western bar and great stone fireplace.

The large, hot (98 to 102 degress) flow-through mineral pool of old is still there but the roof is gone, awnings are installed, and the place has hit the guidebooks, deservedly so.

I have yet to speak of the still simpler joys of traveling in a state where the distances are far and the people few. There is real pleasure and openness between people in speaking with each other and telling their stories.

At a Saturday morning farmer’s market in Helena, I buy a pound of fresh huckleberries, homemade raspberry jam, apricot tea bread and a sack of Fireside apples. From a woman pulled up with her husband in their camper truck, I buy a hand-crocheted lap quilt.

“I’m not from here originally,” she tells me. “My family is still in Minnesota and when we first came out here, my husband hired on at the ranches. But I raised my sons here and I’d never go back. Montana has been good to us. We love it here.”

I understand what she is saying.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: INFORMATION Travel Montana (general tourism information), (800) 847-4868 Boulder Hot Springs, (406) 225-4339. Chico Hot Springs Lodge, (406) 333-4933. Elk Horn Hot Springs, (406) 834-3434. Fairmont Hot Springs Resort, (800) 332-3272 (in Montana), (800) 443-2381 (out of state) or (406) 797-3241. Jackson Hot Springs Lodge, (406) 834-3151. Lolo Hot Springs Resort, (800) 273-2290 or (406) 273-2290. Lost Trail Hot Springs Resort, (800) 825-3574 or (406) 821-3574. Quinn’s Hot Springs, (406) 826-3150. Spa Hot Springs Motel, (406) 547-3366.

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