Penny Hot Springs

Penny Hot Springs is a set of primitive, rock-lined pools on the west bank of the Crystal River in western Colorado. Pitkin County Open Space and Trails manages the small county parcel, about 0.1 acre, which the county bought in 1991 and added to its open space program in 1999. The pools straddle that parcel and Colorado Department of Transportation right of way along Highway 133, and the county's Filoha Meadows Nature Preserve lies directly across the river. The county's 2020 management plan places the river and pools at about 6,900 feet, roughly 20 feet below the highway.

The springs sit just north of mile marker 55 on Highway 133, about 3 miles north of Redstone and 12 miles south of Carbondale. Parking is limited to the roadside pullout, and a short, steep and eroded path drops from the pullout to the riverbed. The county lists the site as open year-round, and there is no fee. The rules the county publicizes are no dogs, no camping, no glass containers and no amplified music, along with pack-in, pack-out practices. The White River National Forest rises on the hillside west of the highway.

Visitors have come here for well over a century. By the late 1880s the spot, then called simply Hot Springs, had a wagon road and a stagecoach stop, and local landowner Dan Penny ran a guest house and dining room near the Crystal River Railroad line; the springs still carry his name. A concrete building at the site was bulldozed on February 28, 1972, after years of local disputes. Pitkin County adopted its first management plan for the property in March 2020. Redstone is the closest town, and Carbondale is the nearest larger town down the valley.