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When the stressful holiday season and frosty winter conditions have you feeling bitter, sometimes the best way to take the edge off isn’t by pouring a stiff cold drink. Instead, try immersing yourself in healing warm water.
It’s easy to forget that something as simple as an extended soak can loosen muscles, alleviate tension, improve brain function and speed healing. In Portland, we are blessed with many soaking options in a variety of settings, so we packed our bags with pool sandals and bathing suits to visit as many as possible within city limits to provide the ultimate guide to tubbing. By the time we were finished, our fingers were pruney, our hair smelled like eucalyptus, and our skin was as smooth and soft as freshly kneaded dough. The experience was so relaxing and refreshing, we guarantee that not even a forecasted Snowpocalypse will dampen your post-soak spirits this winter.
Blooming Moon Wellness Spa
1417 N Shaver St., 971-279-2757, bloomingmoonspa.com. 10 am-8 pm Tuesday-Sunday.
One year ago, Blooming Moon added a soak-and-steam retreat to its lineup of offerings, which include everything from facials to waxing to mani-pedis. Since the spa is in a converted Craftsman, there is ample room in what would’ve been a backyard, so the business went ahead and installed what looks like an HGTV-designed she shed with its very own hot tub just steps from the front door. And when you book a 90-minute session, you get the whole place to yourself, which includes a kitchenette stocked with caffeine-free “Be Well Tea” and lemon-lime water (you’re free to bring your own non-alcoholic beverages and snacks), a marble-tiled steam shower and a large patio with plenty of seating—but, let’s face it, your butt will be planted in the whirlpool most of the time. In addition to that, visitors can help themselves to any of the skin products in the bathroom at no charge. Or, for an extra $10, go ahead and sample a flight of three body scrubs (sugar, salt and coffee), which, combined with the hot, soothing steam, left my skin as supple as a freshly boiled noodle.
Though surrounded by appliances that are water-centric, the toilet, oddly enough, is waterless. When shown to the studio, an attendant will tell you how to use a commode that incinerates waste rather than flushing it. A sign in the bathroom reminds users about our world’s worsening water crisis, surely to justify the unusual system (plus, plumbing is expensive to install). But I still couldn’t help but be alarmed by the curl of smoke that emerged from under the closed lid—mortified by the thought of starting a toilet fire—along with another notice warning of a $50 to $100 “misuse fee.”
Toilet concerns aside, Blooming Moon is a worthy solo splurge—I kind of felt like a rock star hanging in that big tub all by myself. But about halfway through, I thought about how nice it would be to have some friends there to share the space. Pro move: Book the retreat for your next birthday party, then head across the street for karaoke at The Alibi after a good soak. Steam is good for loosening up the vocal cords, right? AP.
Reservations required. $110 per person for 90 minutes for one to two people, $100 per person for 90 minutes for three to four people, $90 per person for five to six people. Facials and/or body scrub flight $10-$20 more.
Blue Star Portland Massage & Outdoor Bathhouse
7402 N Vincent Ave.,
503-805-9144, bluestarpdx.com. By appointment only. Closed most Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays.
Tucked away in the backyard of a private residence with a BYOB or J policy (wine chiller, corkscrew, bottle opener and ashtray are all there at the ready), Blue Star is the speakeasy of Portland’s soaking scene. I’m not exactly sure how it exists, but damn if I’m not glad that it does. A pair of porcelain clawfoot tubs built into an open-air cedar shack make this a singular experience and look like they’re ready to star in the most romantic Viagra commercial ever filmed. Licensed massage therapist Jesse Louis built the rustic setup after longing for a private spa. “I personally find it hard to relax in a public one,” Louis explains. Massage clients can also use the baths for water therapy.
Guests are encouraged to practice self-care in whatever way best suits them. For some, that may be a massage with the provided TheraCanes before easing into the water. Others may pop open a bottle of pinot noir and get lost in the rhythm of the shed’s resident rubber duck bobbing around in the water, or try to learn to play the ukulele—included in the attached changing room along with reading material like Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael and a copy of Socialist Alternative.
You also have the ability to customize your experience by choosing everything from the water temperature (115 degrees is recommended, but do not jump right in) to the blend of botanicals that end up in the bath with you. There is even an added option to make one of the tubs a cold plunge (highly recommended). After marinating for two hours in water infused with rose petals, matcha green tea, burdock root, rice bran oil and salts, I’m sad to report that I failed to master the ukulele. However, I did come away from the experience incredibly rested and feeling a bit like Snow White thanks to the abundance of birds, squirrels and spa cats that paid me a visit. AP.
Reservations required. $100 for 1 hour, $130 for 90 minutes, $190 for 2 1/2 hours, $210 for 3 hours, $230 for 3 1/2 hours. Cash or Health Savings Account card only.
Common Ground Wellness Cooperative
5010 NE 33rd Ave., 503-238-1065, cgwc.org. 10 am-10 pm Thursday-Tuesday, 5-10 pm Wednesday.
This Concordia neighborhood New Age, body-positive healing spa is tailor-made for crusty hippies and Naked Bike Ride enthusiasts. That’s not to dismiss the range of important services Common Ground provides, like acupuncture, chiropractic care, massage therapy and life coaching. But I was there for the clothing-optional soaking pool, which did not disappoint.
One warning: The communal locker room was a tight squeeze—you may end up accidentally bumping butts with another person in the small space. But that’s the only physical contact you’ll find here. Common Ground is a strictly no-touching, non-sexual space, where everyone is advised to watch where their eyes land, and even public displays of affection by couples are banned.
The soaking pool and sauna are in a walled courtyard open to the elements. But you should find the cool breeze refreshing after emerging from the steamy gauntlet of nude bodies in the changing area. And there will be a lot of folks sans swimsuits. I’m all for body positivity, but even I blushed at the sight of a buck naked elderly gentleman spread eagle on a deck chair cooling off between sauna and soak. Keeping your clothes on is an option, but you may be the odd one out if you do when visiting this C-shaped pool with a fountain. EJ-G.
Reservations optional. $10 for members, $15 for non-members for 30 minutes; $20 for members, $25 for non-members for 1 hour; $30 for members, $35 for non-members for 90 minutes; $40 for members, $45 for non-members for 2 hours.
Knot Springs
33 NE 3rd Ave., Suite 365, 503-222-5668, knotsprings.com. Member access 6 am-10 pm Monday-Friday, 8 am-10 pm Saturday-Sunday; public hours 8 am-8 pm daily.
Most of the soaking pools in Portland are quiet, soothing places that allow for peaceful contemplation. At Knot Springs, any R&R takes place among a crowd of twenty- and thirtysomethings, who are mostly visiting in pairs and engaging in conversations usually had at a bar. With 90-degree penthouse views of the Portland skyline and Willamette River, Knot Springs is a place to see and be seen, quite literally, because I could practically hear the dialogue between two power walkers crossing the Burnside Bridge.
Near the center of the spa is a concrete tablet etched like the Ten Commandments with a suggested order of amenities to get the most out of your experience. Start with an exfoliating shower, slip into the warm and still tepidarium, dip into the hot and bubbly caldarium, ease into the chilly cold plunge, dry off in the sauna, get sweaty in the steam room, and basically rinse and repeat until you have made your way through the process to achieve total enlightenment (if you believe in that sort of thing).
Feeling slightly grouchy and out of place, I noticed that, at 41, I was possibly the oldest person there (a jarring reversal from every other spa I visited). The sharply attired regulars dipped in and out of the shallow pools like clubs along the strip, occasionally stopping to fill their cup with one of the five provided non-alcoholic and caffeine-free draft beverages. I thought, “Is this what the youth are doing these days instead of drinking their sorrows away at the bar like their properly adjusted elders?”
As I tried to figure out how to fill my 90-minute session, I came up with a drinking game, pairing the complimentary beverages with the spa’s five vessels: a glass of room-temperature water with the sauna, the chilled bubbly water with the steam room, an energizing root-based tea with the tepidarium, and the pain-reducing herbal tea with the cold plunge. Pleased with myself, the knots in my shoulders began to loosen as I gazed at the sun setting behind the West Hills and thought maybe the kids are really onto something here after all. EJ-G.
Reservations required. $69 for 90 minutes before 3:30 pm midweek, $89 all other times.
Lloyd Athletic Club
815 NE Halsey St., 503-287-4594, lloydathleticclub.com. 5:30 am-9:30 pm Monday-Friday, 7 am-8 pm Saturday-Sunday.
I was always under the impression that the 45-year-old Lloyd Athletic Club was an exclusive institution where the upper crust of Portland went for recreation. I was wrong. If anything, it’s a throwback to the sweatband-and-short-shorts era, when everyone dressed in bright colors and played dodgeball like it was a serious sport.
The hot tub, along with the sauna and showers, are located in the back of the locker rooms behind a glass wall, presumably so you can watch a drop-down TV located in the changing area through the glass. The tub is roiling and the room is as steamy as Cinemax After Dark. But I can’t figure out why the back wall is lined with mirrors other than to watch yourself flex and undress. I guess that’s the crowd here: mostly middle-aged guys who miss post-game high school locker room hangout sessions. I’ve never seen so many people wearing nothing but gold chains and rings while misting themselves with cologne. I wonder if that’s why my eyes were burning? I’m not sure if it was the chlorinated water or the sheer amount of aftershave in the air. Ultimately, this hot tub isn’t for me, but I look forward to becoming a regular 10 years, one herniated disc and two kids from now. EJ-G.
No reservations required. Free for members. $26-$119 for memberships, or use a free day pass to access the hot tub.
The Everett House
2927 NE Everett St., 503-232-6161, everetthousecommunityhealingcenter.com. 10 am-11 pm Tuesday-Saturday, 3-11 pm Sunday.
Nearly every hot tub or soaking pool promises to provide a tranquil setting, but The Everett House actually delivers. The urban oasis is hidden behind two Craftsman homes in Kerns. Walk-ins are OK—just sign some waivers and leave your ID at check-in and you’re good to go. Other than the COVID sneeze guard, it really feels like you’re walking into someone’s home that just happens to have a killer spa.
Everyone changes together in a small basement locker room before heading into the bamboo-lined backyard that’s semi-screened from any looky-loo neighbors by a maple tree and two thick pines. Toward the back of the house, some people partake in clawfoot tub cold plunges while others sit by a gas fire pit—during my visit, one guy was simply reading his Kindle in the nude. There is also a saltwater hot tub with a cascading waterfall you can dip your head under. This is a quiet setting with no music—just the sounds of running water and chirping birds.
Remove the pinlock on the property’s wooden gate to enter a clothing-required yard, where you can grab a seat inside a small teahouse (visitors can also order through a window from the hot tub area), or lounge in a lawn chair. From this section, you can also access a steam room and sauna through a circular archway that looks like a hobbit hole. The whole experience is incredibly peaceful—like soaking in a Tibetan monastery. EJ-G.
Reservations recommended, walk-ins subject to availability. $16 for 30 minutes, $25 for 1 hour, $35 for 90 minutes. 18+.
McMenamins Crystal Hotel
303 SW 12th Ave., 503-972-2670, mcmenamins.com/crystal-hotel. 7 am-1 am daily for hotel guests.
Portland’s underground has long had a sordid reputation. If you believe local lore, the network of tunnels in Old Town Chinatown have been used as a brothel, an opium den and an abduction superhighway. More recently, the Nic Cage-led film Pig set a bizarre basement-dwelling chefs’ fight club in the Rose City’s core. However, there is at least one part of downtown where descending below street level isn’t scary at all—it’s downright serene. The Crystal Hotel, located on the West End’s cheese wedge-shaped block, houses what may be the prettiest pool in town.
Yes, you must be an overnight guest to partake in this subterranean soak, but the next time you purchase tickets to a show at the neighboring Crystal Ballroom, springing for a room might not set you back much more than a round trip to and from home with a ride-hailing app. And, after an evening spent bounding across the venue’s famous floating dance floor, your muscles deserve to be submerged in McMenamins’ saltwater—a practice that converts sodium chloride into chlorine that’s used at all of the company’s pools, resulting in a silkier bath.
The 1911 building has been many things before becoming a McMenamins property: an auto parts store, a nightclub and gamblers den, and, in the ‘70s, a bathhouse—making it an integral part of Portland’s queer history. However, the pool you soak in today is not original. The brewpub empire added that feature after it purchased the structure and began remodeling.
It also brought the outdoors into the basement by lining the walls with bamboo and installing a rain shower, which you can use as a substitute for a cold plunge by blasting frigid water instead of warm. The only natural light filters in through clouded glass tiles above the far portion of the pool, which are embedded in the sidewalk. It’s the best section of the oversized tub, because that’s also the location of two metal pipes that provide a gentle water massage if you stand right next to them. AP.
No reservations required. Free for hotel guests.
McMenamins Kennedy School
5736 NE 33rd Ave., 503-249-3983, mcmenamins.com/ kennedy-school. 8 am-10 pm daily for hotel guests; 10:30 am-6:30 pm daily for the general public.
Just as you won’t find children writing sentences on a chalkboard inside Kennedy School’s Detention room, there are no instructors taking a break behind a heavy wooden door near the lobby labeled “TEACHERS.” That, of course, is part of the fun at any of McMenamins’ historic properties. The façades remain intact, but nothing is as it seems after crossing the threshold. You could encounter a bar (more likely than not), a brewery, a secret room filled with nothing but psychedelic art, or a soaking pool, which is the case with the former teachers’ lounge on this 4-acre campus.
The space is now a modestly sized courtyard lined with bamboo and palm trees—some tall and thin with fanlike fronds, others squatty with leaves so large and thick you could weave them into a rug. The perimeter is so lush, slipping into the burnt-orange-and-blue-tiled pond feels almost like bathing in the middle of a jungle. The illusion might last for those lucky enough to get the pool all to themselves, but that’s an unlikely scenario since it’s open to both hotel guests and anyone with internet access who can make a reservation. So, come mentally prepared: This is not a body of water fit for tranquil meditation. During my midafternoon visit, the scene was more “public pool open swim” than “serene hotel haven,” as kids scampered around and took turns jumping in—one even decided this was the perfect place to start practicing the overhand stroke.
Once the pint-sized crowd clears out (yes, there will be tears and wailing), you’re at least then only among chatty adults whose volume level is fueled by booze (it took less than one tumbler of wine for a woman soaking near me to begin bellowing her opinion about people who name their children things like “Cedar” and “Roam”). Welcome to the pool party, baby! Now is not the time to resist becoming wet and rowdy. Bring your bestie, order beer in plastic cups to go from the bar, and get to dishing in the water. Bonus: If you’re there at the right time of day, the aroma of cooked Grape Nuts will waft across the plaza. That’s a sign the Kennedy School brewers are mashing in their next batch of beer. AP.
Reservations required. $10 per person for an hour ages 12 and older, $5 for kids ages 3 to 11, kids 2 and under get in free.
Root Whole Body
2122 NW Quimby St., 503-292-7668, rootwholebody.com. 8 am-8 pm daily.
Root is a great space to isolate yourself from the world and focus on well-being, and no, I didn’t read that in a pamphlet but actually had that experience after initially struggling to disconnect. Located on the ground level of the swanky Q21 Apartments and across the street from a New Seasons Market, this spa knows its audience well. There is not only a variety of health-focused services; the business also operates the plant-based Blossoming Lotus Cafe & Juice Bar.
To begin my 35-minute hydrotherapy medicinal soak, I was ushered into Root’s dimly lit back halls with sliding shoji paper doors. That feature, combined with the flower murals and candlelit washitsu-style tea room, made it feel more like I was at a Japanese onsen than an American wellness spa—a welcome change of scenery.
Every guest gets their own private, wood-paneled room with dimmable lights and a deep tub surrounded by stones. You draw your own bath water, adjusting the temperature accordingly. Each tub has a table tray with a hot cloth to drape over your face, a ceramic pitcher of cold water, and salt to season the water to your liking. At first, I found the piped-in music distracting, but as the soundtrack shifted from coffee shop jazz into something that sounded like Trent Reznor-composed music designed to get you laid whenever you play it, I started to relax.
Yet, my social media-addled brain was still racing, and I wished I had taken an edible before getting in. I decided to dump the entire saltbox into the water, crank up the hot faucet, and take a sip of tea. As the temperature and therapeutic minerals began to do their job, I sank beneath the water and the problems of the world washed away. Before I knew it, the timer was going off and I was ready to rebook another session with the CBD add-on. EJ-G.
Reservations required. $45 for members, $55 for non-members for 35 minutes; $65 for members, $75 for non-members for 35 minutes in a CBD soak. 18+ or permission needed from a parent or guardian.
Santé Aesthetics & Wellness
210 NW 17th Ave., Unit 100, 971-407-3066, santepdx.com. 10 am-6 pm Monday, 10 am-7 pm Tuesday-Saturday.
Santé caters to the bohemian Northwest Portland crowd with its European-style spa located in a former chapel and funeral home listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Once inside, you’d never guess that you’re a block from Interstate 405 since it looks like the business was plucked from the Italian countryside.
Santé has taken great pains to set the mood. The downstairs bathhouse is decked out to resemble what you might imagine a spa looked like before the fall of the Roman empire (think marble pillars, beige tiling, and flickering candles deposited in cubbyholes in the wall). Above the LED-lit, 103-degree pool is a fresco of a night sky, complete with twinkling pinhole lights.
A separate UV-light room is designed to simulate a heated pebble beach, and a glowing aroma diffuser fills the hall with the right evocative scents. But I can’t say I felt truly transported until spending half an hour in the eucalyptus steam room with the temperature turned up to 11. By the time I entered the UV light-sanitized soaking pool and looked up at the stars, I almost believed I was on a Tuscan vacation. EJ-G.
Reservations required. $65 for one hour, $50 if booked with another service.
Yacht Tubs
315 S Montgomery St., #140, 503-327-8849, yacht-tubs.com. 10:30 am, 11:30 am, 2 pm, 3 pm, 5:30 pm and 6:30 pm Wednesday-Monday (winter schedule).
Unless you’re chaperoning children on one of the Portland Spirit’s holiday-themed Cinnamon Bear excursions, cruising the Willamette River doesn’t sound like a particularly appealing winter activity. But the water is just fine, year-round, inside a Yacht Tub, the city’s only mobile soaking pools (to our knowledge). The company, which first began launching boat baths in 2021 from a dock on the South Waterfront, has slightly earlier hours from November through February, and you may scurry down to the riverbank from Yacht Tubs’ changing rooms more quickly while wearing a swimsuit in 40-degree temperatures, but, for the most part, it’s business as usual.
In 2022, when WW first recounted a Yacht Tub experience, we said the outing made us “feel like a rich bitch,” and that remains true to this day. Designed to look like a sleek speed boat (though they actually max out at around 4 miles per hour), the vessels are equipped with a Bluetooth stereo and quiet electric motor. Food and drink are allowed on board, but if this is a booze cruise, just keep in mind that whoever in your gang steps up to take on the role of captain must remain sober. Yes, the Yacht Tub is steered by a joystick, but it’s no video game.
While you might expect winter to be the slow season, December has actually become one of the most popular times to book these roving tubs, which are decked out in string lights during the holiday season. That’s because you don’t simply get a front-row seat to Portland’s annual Christmas Ships parade; when you’re out on the water, you’re practically part of the colorful procession. AP.
Reservations required. $399 for two hours for up to six people; $450 on Christmas Ships nights and New Year’s Eve.
Oregon Winter is Willamette Week’s annual winter activity magazine. It is free and can be found all over Portland beginning Wednesday, December 6, 2023. Find your free copy at one of the locations noted here, before they all get picked up!