Red Mountain Spa, Utah: Moved by Mountains

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

It's a land lost in time where two great geological provinces, the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range impacted each other. Says geologist Ken Puchlik, standing in Snow Canyon State Park in Utah: "It's one of the few places in the world with all the pages in the book of geological time."

The Anasazi lived here till about 1200 AD, then the Paiute Indians appeared then some of the Mormon pioneers -- their graffiti-like names and dates from the 1880s still visible, written in axle grease on the sheer walls of Navajo sandstone.

Now come those seeking rejuvenation, hoping for help in lifestyle choices and trusting inspiration will come from the 5000 foot-high red peaks dominating the area.

They want to be moved by mountains.

They are today's worn-out Americans.

"When I started here in 1999, says Deborah Evans, the general manager of Red Mountain Spa, "Our clients arrived mentally tired. Now they come burned out. Time is the big luxury and we never have enough today."

Red Mountain Spa in the past has been a fitness institute where, says a frequent guest, obese patients came to stay for months and lose hundreds of pounds. But since it changed ownership in 1998 and was expanded and upgraded it has completely altered focus. Now, the second largest destination spa in the United States (after Canyon Ranch), it has a staff of 211 with 41 professionally trained wilderness and hiking guides.

Although it offers personal health and fitness services, cooking classes, golf and tennis -- and more than 30 different spa treatments -- its forte is the outdoors: rock climbing, mountain biking, horseback riding, star gazing and visiting nearby Zion and Bryce National Parks. And hiking in small groups on one of the 30 trails on Utah's famed and adjacent Snow Canyon State Park sometimes accompanied by geologists or archaeologists. "We call it 'Choose your own adventure'," says Evans.

Evans is a realist. She wants her guests to achieve something often missing even in the very fit: a sense of balance. "When I see them looking at their watches and checking their pulses I want to give them permission to come out of the box. I want them to play. And as for dieting I'd let them go 70/30: If they're watching what they eat 70 percent of the time it's OK slip 30 percent."

Although the resort has an excellent chef and the calorie-labeled meals are delicious; and although the staff is cheerful and obliging and the spa attendants helpful and competent, it's the outdoor expeditions that guests appear to remember.

Cathy Farneman, a local herbalist, for example, is a self-described "desert rat who came from Santa Barbara, California and spent her first 10 years in Utah trying to get back." She finally embraced the American Southwest, made friends with tribes and learned how they used desert plants as medicinals. She now takes interested guests into the desert to demonstrate what she has learned.

Boma Johnson, however, leads guests into both the desert and the distant past. With a Masters in Native American studies and in Archaeology he has earned the trust of local tribes with his sensitivity to Indian spirituality over the years. ("It's OK to call them Indians," he says, "that's what they call themselves.") He bends over rocks that show the dense black "desert varnish" of manganese and iron oxide. Chiseled by stones out of the varnish many centuries ago are the petroglyphs described by Johnson as "story panels sharing information with viewers in attempts to communicate."

But perhaps the red rocks themselves communicate.

Asked what does a geologist think as he ponders this land around him? Puchlik replies, "Our land is fragile. The rocks speak of unmentionable chaos. They show order is limited and the slate can be wiped clean at any moment by the wrath of Nature. Life is precious. We ought to slow down and enjoy it."