Qualla: Pagosa Hot Springs

Pagosa Hot Springs: Introduction

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Netherzone, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2020, a team from the Colorado School of Mines and the U.S. Geological Survey lowered a measuring device into the main vent of Pagosa Hot Springs. The cable ran out at 1,002 feet. They never found the bottom. That measurement earned a Guinness World Record for hot springs depth, but the real story here is not the record itself -- it is the fact that for at least nine millennia, people have been drawn to this spot in the San Juan Basin where scalding, sulfur-rich water forces its way to the surface from volcanic rock 6,000 feet underground. The Ute people had a name for it that translates to either "healing water" or "water that smells bad." Both descriptions remain accurate.

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Image: Netherzone | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pagosa Hot Springs: Nine Thousand Years at the Water's Edge

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit colorado trips, CC BY 2.0. A 9,000-year-old Folsom point found at a shelter foundation near the springs tells the oldest part of the story. The Folsom culture -- Ice Age hunters who tracked bison across the high plains -- knew this place. A thousand years ago, the Ancestral Puebloans settled along the near...

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Image: colorado trips | CC BY 2.0

Pagosa Hot Springs: From Sacred Ground to Swimming Pool

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Netherzone, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the Civil War, the U.S. government considered building a convalescent hospital at the thermal springs. The project was never approved, and the land was sold to private individuals who wasted no time commercializing it. Primitive wooden bathhouses went up along both banks of...

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Image: Netherzone | CC BY-SA 4.0

Pagosa Hot Springs: The Mother Spring

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit unknown, Public domain. The geological engine driving all of this sits on the western slope of the Continental Divide. The main vent, known as the "Mother Spring," pushes sulfur-rich water to the surface at temperatures measured between 131 and 144 degrees Fahrenheit. The water originates from volcanic ...

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Image: unknown | Public domain

Pagosa Hot Springs: A Depth Beyond Measure

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Netherzone, CC BY-SA 4.0. The 2020 depth measurement expedition was a collaboration between the Center for Mineral Resources Science at the Colorado School of Mines and the U.S. Geological Survey. Their device descended 1,002 feet into the Mother Spring before the cable reached its full extension. The bot...

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Image: Netherzone | CC BY-SA 4.0