For a few rowdy years in the ‘80s, Arapahoe Basin had a hot tub.
You read that right: Starting in 1986 you could find a slopeside hot tub on The Beach at least one day a year, every year, until the early ‘90s.
The tub wasn’t exactly sanctioned, but it wasn’t illegal.
On a sunny June day at A-Basin, Krystal 93 hopped in the hot tub time machine with Rob Diehl from the Front Range:
“Just one day a year and we did it. Five or six years straight. I hired a guy and he pulled (the hot tub) up in a trailer. We ran hoses from the old patrol shack that was there, and we’d fill it up and had a big pool heater. It took about three hours to heat up. Some days it was nice and warm and fun. Sometimes it was snowing. It was always a gamble.”
What pulled the plug on Rob’s beachside tub?
“Nobody wants to see us geezers in swimming suits,” he laughs, to which one of his buddies – part of the original hot tub crew – says, “We weren’t geezers back then!”
Rob reveals the REAL reason:
“They don’t allow it anymore. Something about, you know, chlorinated water and B.O. draining down the creek into Keystone. They don’t like that anymore.”
You’ll still find Rob and the hot tub crew ripping up slush on June days at A-Basin, where they rock Hawaiian shirts and swim shorts – even without the hot tub.
We have one more weekend of riding and skiing at Arapahoe Basin, Friday June 14 to Sunday June 16, until 2 p.m. daily.