Glenwood Hot Springs Resort is pleased to announce the hiring of Jarrid Hadland as director of operations and Tim Czajka as assistant pool manager. As the resort continues to expand with the opening of Yampah Mineral Baths in late May, both men will play important roles in the progress.

Hadland is a native of Glenwood Springs and most recently worked as vice president of D.M. Neuman Construction, where he was employed for 17 years and closely involved with numerous commercial and residential projects. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a focus on real estate from Colorado State University.  

During free time, Hadland finds solace and inspiration in nature. Dirt biking, traditional archery hunting, camping, mountain biking and snowmobiling are among his favorite pastimes along with reading, history and music. Hadland and his wife, Liz, are the proud parents of two children.

Czajka brings a wealth of experience and a passion for aquatic sports to his new position, which includes overseeing the new Yampah Mineral Baths. The native of Mukwonago, Wisconsin, earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education and coaching from the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh, where he swam at the collegiate level for four years.

Having resided in Manassas, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., for the past 12 years, Czajka has immersed himself in various aquatic environments, from beaches to indoor Olympic-sized pools and everything in between. He has managed and worked at water parks, leading swim programs for organizations such as the American Red Cross, YMCA, Swim America and Aqua-Tots. An adventurous spirit has resulted in Czajka’s participation in more than 50 events, ranging from Ironman triathlons to 50K trail running races. 
 

Voting is live through April 26th in the inaugural Ajax Awards

Glenwood Hot Springs Resort is proud to be nominated by our local fans for 12 categories in the 2024 Ajax Awards for the Roaring Fork Valley, organized by Aspen Daily News. Place your vote for Glenwood Hot Springs in the following categories. 

Arts & Entertainment

• Place for a Kid’s Birthday Party
• Place to Take an Out Of Town Guest
• Staycation
• Sunday Activity

Outdoor & Fitness

• Fitness Class (H2O Fit)
• Fitness Instructor (Cindy Frale)
• Gym
• Swimming Location
• Yoga Instructor/Class
• Yoga or Pilates Studio

Local Community

• Attraction
• Mr. Glenwood (Kevin Flohr)

Thank you for voting!

Everything is more fun when shared with a friend. It’s especially true at the world’s largest hot springs pool in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, where you can soak, relax and play to your heart’s content all year long. However, there are two special days on the calendar at Glenwood Hot Springs Resort. This spring, active pool pass holders and athletic club members can bring one friend to the pool for free on April 17 and April 20. Both members and guests must enter through the pool lobby. 
 

This spring’s Bring a Friend events are in honor of the late Henry “Hank” Bosco, who began serving on Glenwood Hot Springs Resort’s board of directors in 1956, became general manager in 1976, and retired from the board in 2015 at age 92 after stints as president and chairman of the board. He passed away two years later in 2017. 
 

In 2009, Hank was inducted into the Colorado Business Hall of Fame. Six years later, the Glenwood Springs City Council honored him for lifetime achievements with a state-issued proclamation declaring April 17 as Hank Bosco Day. So, it is only appropriate that one of the Glenwood Hot Springs Resort’s Bring a Friend Days is happening on April 17! 
 

A Rich Legacy
 

Hank was known for spreading joy everywhere, from the hotel lobby where he worked in his youth to the boardroom at Glenwood Hot Springs Resort. A Glenwood Springs native, Bosco was born in 1922 and lived and worked in his family’s hotel, Star Hotel on Seventh Street. In 1938, his parents purchased the adjacent Denver Hotel so Bosco spent his youth learning the the hospitality industry and the value of providing top-notch customer service. 
 

After graduating from high school in 1940, he attended the University of Colorado, enlisted in the Army Reserves during his junior year and saw action in Europe during WWII. Upon returning to Glenwood Springs, Hank and his father expanded Denver Hotel. He married Dorothy “Dottie” Cowles in 1950, and their family grew to include four children. 
 

In 1956, a community-altering opportunity presented itself. Frank Kistler, then owner of the Hot Springs Pool decided to sell. There were concerns the pool would become privately owned and permanently closed to the public. To prevent this outcome, Bosco and 21 other families scraped together enough cash to make the down payment to purchase the Hot Springs Pool, which was in dire need of repair. Bosco and other board members reinvested profits and reinvigorated the iconic landmark that opened in 1888. 
 

While Bosco had a head for business, his heart was invested in the well-being of Glenwood Springs. He served on the Planning and Zoning Commission and Valley View Hospital Association Board of Directors and was a city councilor and a member of the Elks Lodge and Club 20. Bosco was also involved with Community on the Move and served on the boards of both First National Bank and Mesa National Bank. 
 

Hank was fond of saying, “Anything I may have accomplished during my lifetime, I owe to the blessing of being able to surround myself with so many close friends, fellow employees and advisors.”
 

Making a Difference

Like Bosco, Glenwood Hot Springs Resort strives to be a good community citizen, donating to many local organizations, sponsoring the annual Strawberry Days Festival and giving college scholarships to area students.
 

Hats off to people like Hank who make a difference and to the resort’s pool pass holders and athletic club members. Bring a friend and enjoy a blissful day in the mineral-rich hot springs surrounded by smiling faces and beautiful mountain vistas. All members and their guests must enter together through the pool lobby to utilize this special promotion.

A rowdy frontier town quickly becomes a world-renowned hot springs destination.

One of Colorado’s best-known historic attractions keeps getting better with time. Located on the site of the prolific Yampah Spring that produces 3.5 million gallons of pure mineral springs water a day, Glenwood Hot Springs Resort opened to great fanfare on July 4, 1888 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

However, longevity doesn’t mean static. the East End Expansion, due to open in late May, is the third phase of a multiyear plan that introduces new features, implements improvements, and continues good stewardship of the world’s largest hot springs pool. This entirely new swimming area, located on the east end, is designed for adults and has five additional pools of varying temperatures, a shade pergola, and an outdoor lounging area with a hearth. Two of the pools have soothing waterfalls, including one that provides a natural stone grotto experience.

As with the historic Grand Pool and Therapy Pool, the geothermally heated water for the new pools comes directly from Yampah Spring and features 15 naturally occurring minerals that soothe mind, body and spirit. The Ute people were some of the earliest discoverers of the health benefits of hot springs and named this spring Yampah, which means “big medicine.”

As part of the East End Expansion, the area around Yampah Spring is being landscaped, the historic drinking spring reopened, and signage installed to tell the story of this Glenwood Springs heritage property.

The first phase of Glenwood Hot Springs Resort’s multiyear improvement plan, Sopris Splash Zone, opened on the west end in 2019 to deliver a completely new experience for families, including a whitewater river tube ride, the lighted Grand Fountain that serves as a splash pad during the day, and a children’s pool with three small slides, waterfalls, shallow play areas and more. Phase two wrapped up in 2022 and included major upgrades to the Therapy Pool and all changing rooms. The fourth phase will be announced later this year.

Over the years, this Colorado hot springs resort has grown to include a 107-room lodge, full-service athletic club, gift shop, and poolside restaurant and snack bar. The resort is linked to downtown Glenwood Springs by a pedestrian bridge that borders the west end of the pool.

A step back in time
 

The Historically Landmarked & Significant Places booklet published in 2015 by the Glenwood Springs Historic Preservation Commission describes the community’s rich and colorful heritage and spotlights significant buildings and attractions such as Glenwood Hot Springs Resort. The following includes several excerpts from this insightful document.

For hundreds of years, the Ute Indians fought over and protected a sacred spot at the confluence of the Rio Grande de Buena Esperanza (Colorado) and Bunkara (Roaring Fork) rivers. Next to an island in the middle of the river and at the western end of a magnificent canyon, hot thermal water rich in minerals flowed. The flowing hot water also created a natural sauna in a series of caves. The Ute people came to this place to rest, hunt, fish and utilize the healing powers of the hot springs.

In 1860, Captain Richard Sopris and a party of geologic explorers noticed Yampah hot spring and named the place Grand Springs. Permanent settlements in the area started to pop up in 1880. In 1881, James Landis homesteaded 160 acres that included most of the hot springs area.

Isaac Cooper at the source spring standing at the center of the photo.

Landis sold the acreage to Captain Isaac Cooper, a Civil War veteran who came to the area in 1882 and dreamt of turning the hot springs into a health spa. He formed a company called the Defiance Town and Land Co. of Colorado, acquired 400 acres of land, and began to survey a town site that he named Defiance. In 1885, the name was changed to Glenwood Springs, after his hometown of Glenwood, Iowa.

The fascinating history of Glenwood Hot Springs Resort begins in 1886 when Walter Devereux, an engineer and silver baron, and his two brothers bought Yampah Spring and 10 acres of land from Cooper. The spring was located on an island situated in the Colorado River. The plan to build the world’s largest hot springs pool began by diverting the natural flow of the Colorado River to the south side of the mid-river island. Construction of the stone diversion wall began in 1886 and building of the aqueduct and pool commenced in early 1888.

The walls of both the pool and the bathhouse were built of Peachblow sandstone from a quarry along the Frying Pan River near Basalt. The Richardson Romanesque-style bathhouse featured 42 sunken Roman vapor baths made of imported porcelain tubs (30 for men and 12 for women), women’s and men’s parlors, a physician’s office, a gymnasium, and smoking and reading rooms. The top floor was an exclusive casino for men. The facility, considered the largest and most lavish in Colorado at the time, was built at a cost of $100,000.

The swimming pool was excavated from the original riverbed along the north edge of the island and paved with fire brick. Measuring in at 615 feet by 75 feet, the pool set a world record. A small wooden bathhouse was constructed at the west end of the pool for use by the general public and demolished many years ago.

Also in the early days, an inhalatorium was built on the east side of the springs. Wicker chairs were provided inside the screened-in wooden building for tourists and patrons who wanted to breathe in the warm vapor. Later called Cocktail Spring, health-seekers drank the water for its healthful benefits.

As part of the plan to transform Glenwood Springs into a world-renowned healing center in the mountains, Glenwood Hot Springs Company led by Walter Devereux hatched the idea to build a grand hotel in the early 1890s. Funded by local, East Coast and British investors, construction of Hotel Colorado began in 1891 with the property’s Italianate architecture modeled after the Villa de Medici in Italy and designed by New York architects Boring, Tilton & Mellon. Opening across from the pool in 1893, no expense was spared with features like a 185-foot-tall water fountain in the courtyard, Victorian garden, bird sanctuary, indoor waterfall, and tennis courts.

Isaac and Devereux also embarked on civic projects that brought water, electricity and railroads to Glenwood Springs. Near the north end of today’s Grand Avenue, Devereux erected a coal-fired, steam-driven electric power plant, making Glenwood Springs one of the first towns in Colorado to be supplied with commercially available electricity starting in 1886.

Glenwood Springs was growing, and the need for more electric power was evident. Devereux and his British financiers erected a hydroelectric plant next, and Glenwood Springs received its first hydroelectrically generated power through Glenwood Light and Water Company in 1888. The City of Glenwood Springs purchased the company and hydroelectric plant building in 1947.

The D&RG and Colorado Midland Railroad both began railroad service to Glenwood Springs in 1887, both striving to be the first. The local economy also was fueled by coal mining, commerce, outdoor recreation, farming and ranching. The annual Strawberry Festival stretches back to 1898.

As word of the new hot springs pool, grand hotel and growing community spread, wealthy Victorians, aristocrats, political leaders, movie stars and spiritual believers ventured to Glenwood Springs from around the world.

Fast Forward
 

During World War II, from 1943 to 1946, the hot springs pool and Hotel Colorado were used exclusively as a U.S. Naval Convalescent Hospital to provide a place for sailors to recuperate. Hotel Colorado had a 500-bed patient capacity and assisted 6,525 veterans on their journey back to health. After the war and until the early 1950s, the hotel was converted into a private hospital, Glenwood Clinic. Since then, there have been a variety of owners of Hotel Colorado, the most recent being the Melville family who purchased the property in 2018.

Jumping back a bit, Frank Kistler purchased the pool in 1938 and sold it to a group of local businessmen in 1954; their families continue to operate Glenwood Hot Springs Resort today. These new owners begin massive renovations to the property including enlarging the Grand Pool and creating the smaller and warmer Therapy Pool. Glenwood Hot Springs Athletic Club opened in the 1980s, and Glenwood Hot Springs Lodge welcomed its first guests in 1986. A heat exchanger device was installed in 1994 to harness the geothermal energy for snowmelt systems and heating domestic water supplies for the lodge and bathhouse, making it one of the first truly sustainable resorts in Colorado.

In 2000, the resort added two water slides and a miniature golf course at the west end of the pool that were replaced by Sopris Splash Zone in 2019, which launched the most recent multiyear phase of improvements as described earlier.

Learn More About Glenwood Springs History

The Glenwood Springs Historical Society has two locations to explore in Glenwood Springs: Frontier Museum, a furnished 1905 Victorian-style home at 1001 Colorado Ave., and the Doc Holliday Collection located on the lower level of Bullocks Western Wear at 732 Grand Ave.

Download the Walking Tour Guide of Historic Glenwood Springs by Glenwood Springs Historical Society to check out other historic sites and read about the history of Glenwood Hot Springs Resort and Hotel Colorado. There are many interesting facts and colorful characters from a rowdy frontier town that aptly started out with the name Defiance and by 1883 was full of miners, trappers, traders, gunslingers, prostitutes and other citizens.

Today, the community and Glenwood Hot Springs Resort beautifully meld past and present. The vision continues to focus on maximizing enjoyment for generations of locals and guests who will visit and relax in the revitalizing hot spring waters now and in the future.
 

There is something about spring and summer that brings road trips to mind. It’s fun to get out and explore when the weather begins to warm up, the leaves and blossoms start to appear, and the days are longer and filled with sunshine. Tune up your car, van, RV, or motorcycle, hit the road, turn the tunes on, and consider these Colorado summer road trip ideas that include Glenwood Springs. No journey to this idyllic Rocky Mountain town is complete without a soak in the world’s largest hot springs pool located at Glenwood Hot Springs Resort.

How will you travel?

If you are traveling in an RV or van that can be hard to find parking for, Glenwood Hot Springs Resort has spaces available for larger vehicles that are available to pool guests and overnight guests at Glenwood Hot Springs Lodge. Overnight stays in your RV and van are not allowed in these parking spaces, but perhaps you are ready for a warm and comfy bed, a spacious bathroom with a bathtub and shower, complimentary made-to-order hot breakfast, and unlimited access to the hot springs during your stay?

Those traveling in electric vehicles also are in luck. Glenwood Hot Springs Resort offers lodge guests, day pass visitors and pool pass holders the use of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in Lot W, located west of the pool under Grand Avenue Bridge. There are four Level 2 charging stations available via ChargePoint. Free EV charging for up to four hours is available for lodge guests through EV access cards.

For all other automobile and motorcycle travelers, there is also free parking for day and overnight guests visiting Glenwood Hot Springs Resort. When staying overnight, it is likely you won’t even need to get in your car as it’s an easy walk over the pedestrian bridge that leads to a wide range of downtown restaurants, coffee houses, ice cream shops, retailers, nightlife and more. It’s also only a block to the Glenwood Canyon Recreation Path trailhead, a route that is perfect for walking, biking, running and rollerblading while surrounded by mountain scenery.

Great camping options

For some Colorado road trip enthusiasts, camping is the name of the game. Located along the Colorado River, Glenwood Canyon Resort has RV, Sprinter van and tent campsites as well as cabins and cottages. The resort teams up with Glenwood Hot Springs Resort to offer a Stay & Play package that includes lodging (not including camping and RV sites) for three consecutive nights in October through December and two hot springs pool passes.  

Or check out Ami’s Acres, located 3 miles west of downtown Glenwood Spring with tent and RV sites, and The Hideout at Glenwood Springs that is nestled along Three Mile Creek and features tiny homes, RV and tent camping sites. There also are numerous campsites in White River National Forest. Make reservations well ahead of your trip, especially during the busy summer and fall months.

Places to drive

If you find yourself on Interstate 70 traveling through Colorado on your road trip and needing a break, put the brakes on at Glenwood Springs. You can see Glenwood Hot Springs Resort from the interstate, which demonstrates how easy it is to take the exit, soothe weary muscles, awaken the senses, and appease antsy kids at the geothermal hot springs pool. A poolside restaurant and snack bar make it simple to get a full meal or a refreshing smoothie or Flavor Burst ice cream cone. Or maybe nachos or french fries?

Glenwood Springs also is a great base camp for all sorts of day trips as the gateway to the Roaring Fork Valley, which stretches south and also includes communities like Carbondale, Basalt, Snowmass Village and Aspen. If you want to leave your vehicle in Glenwood Springs, the paved Rio Grande Trail is fun to bike from Glenwood Springs to Aspen or utilize the RFTA bus system.

To the east, discover Vail Valley and make stops in Edwards, Avon, Vail and Minturn and consider checking out the fair-weather activities at Beaver Creek and Vail Mountain ski resorts. To the west, there are numerous picturesque vineyards, orchards and lavender fields around Palisade and Grand Junction.

Glenwood Hot Springs Resort’s Stay and Save Package is ideal for longer visits that are a sweet mix of soaking in the hot springs, exploring Glenwood Springs and taking day trips without having to pack up luggage daily. Stay any three nights and receive 15% off the room rate at Glenwood Hot Springs Lodge or stay five nights or longer and save 20%.

Scenic loops to consider

Any Colorado summer road trip ideas that include Glenwood Springs should also involve designated loops and byways. Glenwood Hot Springs Resort is part of the 800-mile Colorado Historic Hot Springs Loop that showcases 23 premier hot springs attractions in the state. In addition to amazing hot springs experiences, this journey gives drivers and riders a chance to traverse some of the 26 Colorado Scenic and Historic Byways.  

Two of the closest to Glenwood Springs are West Elk Loop Scenic Byway that can be started in Carbondale and Top of the Rockies byway that is easy to access from Aspen and Minturn. Both offer classic Colorado scenery, experiences and communities along the way.

While planning your next getaway, consider these handy Colorado summer road trip ideas that include Glenwood Springs. This mountain paradise is sure to keep you coming back in any season.