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Yampah Spa and Vapor Caves

If floating as if in an enchanted lake with your true love erases all of your virtues save your ambition for relaxation, wander 100 feet down the street from the pool to the Yampah Spa and Vapor Caves. This Aveda-concept spa stands directly over caverns fed by steam from the hot springs, which act as a kind of natural steam-room. You may visit the caves without availing yourself of the spa’s other services, but why deny yourself the pleasure? It is a full-service spa, which means that you can get anything from a facial to a pedicure. For everything in between the spa offers salt-rubs, mud baths, massages, and herbal wraps.

I recommend the herbal wrap, a procedure in which you will nearly be boiled in a Jacuzzi and then wrapped in steaming hot towels stuffed with fragrant herbs of your choosing – lavender or rosemary. Though the whole thing sounds suspiciously like a way to prepare potatoes, it is supposedly the next best thing to a liver transplant. The contemporary herbal wrap is modeled on the ancient medicinal understanding that when sweating the human body expels toxins that lurk in deep tissue. I cannot report scientific evidence of oppressed toxins escaping my pink, steaming body, but I can report that there is a strange, singular joy to being wrapped in white-hot swaddling cloths with the smell of lavender surrounding you.

Follow up your herbal wrap with a full-body massage by one of the Spa’s excellent massage therapists. The massages are fifty-minutes long, and cost on the average around $60. (The Spa offers a range of massages for differing prices, but I recommend that you do at least fifty minutes – time will fly!) My last massage therapist at the Yampah Spa practiced a combination of massage methods, including Swedish and Shiatsu, finishing up with Reiki. Steve was one of the best massage therapists this connoisseur has ever encountered.

Local Festivals

Despite its proximity to the slopes, Glenwood Springs remains an excellent example of an unpretentious mountain town. Drive up the road to Aspen if you want to run into Ivana Trump in the Chanel boutique. Go to Glenwood Springs if you want to check out Strawberry Days. A weeklong festival of rides and games in June, Strawberry days culminates with what the Chamber of Commerce calls a "blowout" in central Sayre Park, which includes a small town parade, local music groups, a juried artisan’s fair, a beer garden, and plenty of strawberry ice cream. For kids, there’s a petting zoo.

Glenwood Springs, like many small towns, has a rich history of community sponsored arts events, the most prominent of which is the 35+ year-old Glenwood Springs Fall Arts Festival. This festival, Colorado’s largest non-juried show, features artists of all ranges of talent in every medium, from novice to professional.

As a testimony to the community’s commitment to the arts, Glenwood Springs is home to not one but four community theatre groups, which produce everything from "The Wizard of Oz" to one-act plays. Glenwood Springs also has The Symphony in the Valley, a group of local musicians performing year-round. Visit http://www.glenwoodspringsco.com/fesartcu.htm for the latest information on festivals in Glenwood Springs.

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