Waunita Hot Springs Colorado Ranch

Waunita Hot Springs Ranch near Gunnison in Colorado's West Elk Mountains is a working guest ranch built around chloride-rich geothermal springs at 9,000 feet elevation in the Gunnison Basin, where the hot spring water fills a large heated pool in a setting of alpine meadows and spruce-fir forests surrounded by the West Elk and Sawatch ranges. The ranch has operated since the 1880s as a combination dude ranch and hot spring retreat, offering guided trail rides, fly fishing in the Tomichi Creek, and horseback trips into the West Elk Wilderness alongside thermal soaking. The surrounding Gunnison Valley — home to the dark skies of Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, the ancient fossil quarries of Fossil Ridge, and the sage-perfumed Big Blue Wilderness — creates one of Colorado's most authentically western ranch-and-springs experiences.