Ridgway Hot Springs

Ridgway Hot Springs occupies the Uncompahgre Valley at the northern gateway to the San Juan Mountains — a volcanic mountain range of such dramatic beauty that it has served as the backdrop for more classic Western films than any other landscape in America, including John Wayne's 'True Grit' and 'How the West Was Won,' whose memorable cliff and canyon scenes were filmed in the jagged terrain between Ridgway, Ouray, and Telluride. The nearby town of Ouray — often called 'the Switzerland of America' — perches in a box canyon at 7,800 feet surrounded by 13,000-foot peaks, accessible via the Million Dollar Highway whose precipitous cliff-edge road is considered one of the most spectacular drives in North America. The bicarbonate thermal waters of the Ridgway springs, heated by the geothermal activity of the San Juan volcanic field, provide mineral bathing in a valley framed by one of the American West's most dramatically photogenic mountain landscapes, where the combination of volcanic geology, film history, and outdoor adventure culture creates a hot spring experience embedded in the most cinematic scenery in the Rocky Mountain West.