The morning sun is just lighting the desert (or mountains, or lake or ocean) but already you’re bent in the lotus posture, deep into yoga meditation. Soon the group will be off on an hour’s hike, returning for breakfast (nothing fatty, nothing fried) before the rest of the world is awake.
The spa life is a good life if you know where to find it. Today every hotel and resort with as many as two treadmills and a sauna calls itself a spa. Some deliver and some don’t.
Of course the good spas right here in North America come in all stripes: spas for softies, spas for toughies, spas for sultans and spas for misers. The lineup below sets out four categories. What they have in common is good taste, a tested reputation and a oneness with the great outdoors.
Ready? Ommm.
CODDLED AND CUDDLED
The Golden Door, California
Going on its 45th year, the Golden Door is still the queen bee of pricey pampering spas. You sense it the moment you step into the Zenlike embrace of the meditative gardens and fountains. You’re handed a yukata robe and expected to wear it–so no daily debate about how to dress. Here in sunny avocado country, 30 miles north of San Diego, the only hardship is rising for the daily 5:45 a.m. stretch and hike. Each guest gets a fitness guide to plan a fitness regimen. The legendary beauty treatments are tailored to your needs by a Personal Esthetician. Go for the pineapple scrub. The place is for women only–except five men’s weeks and four coed weeks.
Mirbeau Inn & Spa, New York
It has a soupcon of French pretension, but Mirbeau Inn & Spa has the stuff to back it up: sound spa regime, creature comforts, fine if not slimming food. Built to resemble Monet’s gardens at Giverny, it clusters chateau-like around a pond outside Skaneateles, a shipshape village in New York’s Finger Lakes. Each guest is assigned a valet–a sort of dashabout concierge who is always at your shoulder to remind you of the next spa appointment. The gleaming 12,000-square-foot spa has 12 treatment rooms, with skilled, gentle masseuses. You have to sweat a lot to offset chef Ed Moro’s splendid cookery. Try the small-portioned tasting menu, a feast nonetheless.
DIVINE AND DRAINING
Rancho la Puerta, Mexico
Recognized as the first fitness spa in North America, Rancho la Puerta in Baja California still has the golden touch after 62 years. An hour’s drive southeast of San Diego, the sunwashed spread has a spiritual and physical base, with no lack of luxury. You stay in flower-draped Spanish colonial cottages and live in shorts and shifts in perpetual 80-degree sunshine. A week’s stay is mandatory, so camaraderie builds among the 150 guests. Rancho la Puerta assumes that many will arrive with a swaybacked slouch, so it emphasizes back exercise. The more able-bodied begin the day with 10-mile hikes up sacred Mt. Kuchumaa. Try African dance or tapas cardio-boxing.
Canyon Ranch, Arizona
Spiritual, puritanical and very sybaritic, Canyon Ranch spreads itself across 70 acres near Tucson in an eden of pools, streams and cactus gardens. The 240 guests, who stay in adobe-style cottages, come to refresh and renew, some pursuing specific goals such as overcoming grief, others to knock off pounds or bond with old friends. All-women is the rule, but some weeks men are 40 percent. There are seven lighted tennis courts, a golf school for tuning your game. In Lunch and Learn cooking classes, you watch a chef prepare meals, then sit down to eat–polenta with asparagus, ahi tuna with salsa. Nights you wrap yourself around concerts, watercolor classes, travelogues. (There’s also a Canyon Ranch in Massachusetts.)
HOLISTIC HAVENS
New Age Health Spa, New York
For a little patch of holistic heaven, try this cluster of white cabins in New York’s Catskills, a two-hour drive from Manhattan. “We’re not a steak-and-cigar spa,” says a staff member. “We’re a cocoon for people who want a wellness experience.” Seventy-two guests engage in gym and pool workouts and a wide range of massages. Lately the spa has taken a spiritual turn, stressing yoga, meditation and relaxation in a sun-filled, high-peaked building with a smiling Buddha in the corner. Outdoor director Peter Offringa leads vigorous walks through the spa’s 280 wooded acres. You eat vegetarian at all meals–much of the fixings are grown on the grounds.
Rio Caliente, Mexico
Rio Caliente was New Age before we knew the term. Rustic, small and affordable, the 50-room spread nestles into a pine forest on the outskirts of Guadalajara. It bubbles with thermal springs and streams that feed a bathhouse and Aztec steam room–open day and night so you can soak under the stars. Do yoga, tai-chi, spa treatments; attend bird-watching lectures; take nature hikes. The eats are vegetarian, and breakfasts are best–eggs, granola, homemade pastries, husky whole-wheat breads. Take a crash course in Spanish, five hours a day of hard but stress-free instruction.
Kripalu Center for yoga & health, Massachusetts
Kripalu Center, a non-profit health retreat, the largest center for yoga and holistic health in the U.S., has been reviving and restoring guests since 1983. Built out of a former Jesuit seminary, it spreads across 300 wooded acres in postcard-perfect Lenox, Mass. The Kripalu way combines posture, breathing and meditation; the goal is to do away with the barriers to joyful living. The guests (450 max) start the day with yoga and meditation, then a breakfast taken in silence. Try a workshop in yoga/low-impact aerobic dance, take a Dance of Tennis class–a spiritual approach to improving your game. The meals are yummy vegetarian –pesto pizza, veggie quesadillas.
SWEATSHOPS
The Ashram, California
The Ashram is not lying when it calls itself “the smallest, toughest, roughest, leanest, meanest, sweetest health retreat.” Barbra Streisand said it was “a boot camp without food.” Campers, a limit of 12 a week, who come to this monastic six-acre retreat of mountains and dashing streams outside Los Angeles are high-profile strivers. The digs are spartan; the focus is on weight loss and fitness. Guests get a fitness evaluation to determine what they can handle. The morning hikes are renowned–some groups have logged 90 miles in a week; afternoons are a blur of weight training, water volleyball and day-ending yoga in a jungly open-air dome.
MOUNTAIN TREK FITNESS
Retreat & Health Spa, Canada
Hike from dawn to dusk and hike some more at this lakeside lodge in the high country of southeastern British Columbia. It’s not easy to get to (a four-hour ride from Spokane airport), but you and your body will not regret it. Sign up for sessions of three, four or seven days; there are yoga and stretch classes, massages, sensible gourmet food. Use the spa for weight loss, fitness or great outdoor fun. Hotshot hikers will want to book the weeklong Challenge Boot Camp in early August, with kayaking, biking, yoga and three massages. Or, try a half-day course in wilderness survival.
Red Mountain: the adventure spa, Utah
High aerobic adventure is the allure of Red Mountain in the red rock canyons of southwestern Utah. Fitness freaks come for cardio boxing, spinning, hip-hop aerobics, mountain biking, hiking, river-rafting, kayaking, rock-climbing. The favored spa treatment is Red Rock Therapy, using warm stones to release energy and improve circulation. There are lectures and classes in nutrition, cooking and wellness. You dine on adventurous items like low-fat pork loin stuffed with dried fruit, blue-corn pancakes, rattlesnake sausage. Make time for side trips to Zion and Bryce National Parks and the Grand Canyon’s north rim.
The skinny on spas
All rates are per person, double occupancy, unless otherwise noted; minimum stays indicated, when applicable. Prices subject to change. Some spas offer packages.
– The Golden Door, 777 Deer Springs Rd., San Marcos, CA 92069; 800-424-0777; www.goldendoor.com. One-week minimum at–are you ready?–$5,725 and up.
– Mirbeau Inn & Spa, 851 W. Genesee St., Skaneateles, NY 13152; 877-MIRBEAU; www.mirbeau.com. Nightly rate of $165 to $365 (single or double occupancy).
– Rancho la Puerta, Box 463057, Escondido, CA 92046; 800-443-7565; www.rancholapuerta.com. One-week minimum, $1,839 to $3,278.
– Canyon Ranch, 8600 E. Rockcliff Rd., Tucson, AZ 85750; 800-742-9000; www.canyonranch.com. Four-night minimum, $2,651.
– New Age Health Spa, New York Highway 55, Neversink, NY 12765; 800-682-4348; www.newagehealthspa.com. Two-night minimum, $144 a night.
– Rio Caliente, Box 897, Milbrae, CA 94030; 800-200-2927; www.riocaliente.com. Nightly rate of $115 to $159.
– Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, Box 793, Lenox, MA 01240; 800-741-7353; www.kripalu.com. Two-night minimum, $140 to $288 per night (six nights, $342-$654).
– The Ashram, Box 8009, Calabasas, CA 91372; 818-222-6900; www.theashram.com. Six-night minimum, about $3,300.
– Mountain Trek Fitness Retreat & Health Spa, Ainsworth Hot Springs, BC VOG 1AO; 250-229-5636; www.hiking.com. Three-night minimum, $1,115 (seven nights, $2,375).
– Red Mountain: the Adventure Spa, 1275 E. Red Mountain Circle, Ivins, UT 84738; 800-407-3002; www.redmountainspa.com. Three-night minimum, $645 and up.
— David Butwin
