Sulfur hot springs well up all over the place at Cave and Basin National Historic Site.  Through the years bathers have been lowered into a cave to be dipped in a subterranean pool, splashed around in a natural rock basin, or soaked in an Olympic sized pool fed by the spring.  I like the idea of a natural mineral spring soak but when the steam from this sulfur stream swirls around me the smell about takes my breath away.  A soak here wouldn’t be very relaxing to me.

They have returned much of the spring to its original flow paths so it trickles down the side of Sulfur Mountain across a perpetually green hillside, even in the Alberta winter.

Buildings have been generally restored to the 1880s period but the water is strictly off limits to protect an endangered snail that lives in the spring.  For a soak, one has only to go into town to the still operating spa.  It is fed by the upper hot springs…apparently not a home to the endangered snail!