Doomsday Church Renovating Popular Yellowstone Hot Springs

On bright autumn afternoons, crowds would make the pilgrimage along the Gardiner River to witness something supernatural — the confluence where the Boiling River merged its scalding waters with a cool mountain tributary to the Yellowstone River. 

The light danced around the slopes of Mount Everts as soakers settled into pools they crafted themselves with river rocks, managing the delicate balance between the two waters to achieve that perfect 105-degree soak.

Elk bugled just across the Gardiner River while visitors worked together in an imperfect science of dam building. 

Using whatever rocks they could find, soakers directed hot water into cold, constantly adjusting their makeshift barriers as blasts of too-hot or too-cold water reminded them nature doesn't follow blueprints. 

Sometimes the place felt overrun with beer-pounding spring breakers, but often it served as a quiet sanctuary on sunny and snowy days. 

It was a sacred place, requiring teamwork and patience.

Then came June 2022.

The flood was biblical in scale, erasing the Boiling River bathing place. 

When asked Friday about the official status of the soaking spot, the ranger greeting visitors at Yellowstone's north entrance delivered some gloomy news: “non-existent."

‘Dramatic’ Shift

According to the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, several inches of rain fell on the park's northern regions from June 10-13, 2022, landing on a late-melting snowpack. 

The combination created historic flooding that forever changed the Gardiner River's flow path. 

The peak flow during the flood hit 2,890 cubic feet per second, nearly four times the average peak snowmelt flow of 800 cfs. At Corwin Springs, the Yellowstone River shattered its 1918 record with a discharge of about 50,000 cis, according to a 2023 report. 

The Boiling River underwent what scientists called a "dramatic shape shift.” 

The new streambed became narrower, with the main channel shifting to the far bank. The trail from the parking lot to the soaking area eroded away. About 4 feet of debris now covers parts of the area. 

But just outside Yellowstone's north boundary, and just down the road from the Boiling River, another riverside soaking experience awaits. 

It’s owned by the Church Universal and Triumphant. 

Locals know the religious organization by its initials, pronounced “CUT” when talking about the group — best known for preaching doomsday predictions about the end of the world. 

Pre-Soak Doom

Long before Yellowstone Hot Springs opened in 2019, its owners gained notoriety in the 1980s and 1990s as a potential "dangerous religious movement," according to research by Jocelyn H. DeHaas, co-author of the book “Controversial New Religions.”

Its leader, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, claimed a cataclysm would happen, leading church members to retreat underground into bomb shelters. 

Another academic study of CUT describes how the organization adopted "a separatist existence" at their communal ranch in southwestern Montana, where Prophet predicted a Soviet nuclear attack for March 15, 1990. 

After that didn’t happen, an article in the Utopian Studies journal characterized CUT as part of "a broader pattern" of movements with "apocalyptic predictions, charismatic leadership, and societal impact."

Today, the church's hot springs tell a different story — one of renewal rather than apocalypse.

Erin Kennedy, general manager of Yellowstone Hot Springs since 2021, is overseeing a million-dollar renovation that's transforming the facility. 

In contrast with the Boiling River, where nature once required constant negotiation, the engineered pools will maintain precise temperatures — 106 degrees in the hot pool, 98.6 in the main pool, matching human body temperature.

"The resort is experiencing a rebirth," Kennedy said, explaining how the renovation addresses the unique challenges of managing geothermal water that emerges at 145 degrees.

Kennedy compared the spring’s healing waters to the famous hot springs of Baden-Baden in Germany, 

"We have what's called a flow-through system," she explained. "Basically, every six or seven hours, it's new water. It naturally refills about three times a day."

The renovations include installing radiant heat in the pool steps and walkways, rebuilding worn surfaces, and creating a more efficient water system. 

"We're not just dumping it down the river after it comes here," Kennedy said. "It's going to go and feed our pavers and keep them warm. 

"It also can feed the radiant heat that's in the cafe. And then it will go into the river, after we have used every ounce of water."

Bighorn Symphonies

The geothermal water flowing beneath Yellowstone Hot Springs has drawn seekers for over a century. 

Dr. Frank E. Corwin was the resident doctor at Chico Hot Springs in the early 1900s. While working at Chico, he became aware of a different, promising hot mineral water source at what is known as LaDuke Springs, situated south of Chico. 

Around 1908, Dr. Corwin left Chico and formed the Electric Hot Springs Co. with investors to develop a new resort using this water.

"He built a big hotel," Kennedy said. "Unfortunately, it burned down and he didn't rebuild.”

Two massive stone fireplaces still stand where they once anchored the hotel lobby. 

The building that housed the swimming pool, called "The Plunge," survived the fire and operated sporadically through the 1940s and ’50s before closing for good.

"We tried to work with architects and engineers to try to do something with that building," Kennedy said. "Not built right, not built to code, certainly not to today's standards. 

"There's no rebar in that cement. The whole thing's coming down so we can build more lodging units over there.”

Kennedy said the resort offers something that drew so many to the old Boiling River — an immersive natural experience.

"Here, you absolutely know you're outside," she said. "You can hear when it's bighorn sheep season — they're all on that mountain. And you can hear them butt heads and play their little bighorn sheep games.”

One hot springs enthusiast told Kennedy something she'd never heard before: that their springs were "female" while most hot springs are "male.”

"Every hot springs, you're going to just enjoy yourself and you're going to be relaxed, but sometimes you're really tired when you come out of there because it's actually draining you," Kennedy explained. "But here, when it's a female hot springs, as this man described, it actually puts energy back in you. 

"So yes, you're relaxed, but you don't have to go take a nap afterwards.”

The mineral content — including magnesium and lithium among roughly 150 other minerals — is just part of the magic. 

Kneipp Cure?

CUT never used the springs for worship or healing ceremonies, said Kennedy. But now, that will be available to everyone when the springs reopen sometime around Nov. 5. 

That’s because Yellowstone Hot Springs is home to the Kneipp walk, built on what Kennedy calls "500-year-old technology” because it is named after Father Sebastian Kneipp, a Bavarian priest from the 1500s who discovered that alternating hot and cold water while walking on river rocks aids circulation.

Kennedy shows off two arching and narrow rectangular pools that run parallel with a handrail in between. They are ankle deep and lined with stones. 

"One side is hot, one side is cold, and you're walking on river rock, just little pebbles," Kennedy said. 

The resort offers a "Kneipp walk challenge” where guests soak in a hot pool for 3-5 minutes, then complete multiple walking laps alternating between hot and cold water before plunging into a 65-degree cold pool.

"Then they get back into the main pool and you've got tingles from your toes to your nose," Kennedy said.

Two years ago, a couple visited the resort. The wife had suffered from neuropathy for years. On her fourth lap of the Kneipp walk, something extraordinary happened.

"She screams to her husband, 'I can feel my feet. We're moving here,'" Kennedy recalled. "That was pretty amazing.”

Four-Season Sanctuary

The makeover now underway at Yellowstone Hot Springs is its own kind of step forward, as the resort aspires to expand its offerings. 

"We changed our name to the Yellowstone Hot Springs Resort a couple of years ago," she said. "Well, let's make it a real resort.”

In addition to demolishing the old Plunge building to make room for additional cabins, Kennedy wants to see the restaurant grow beyond its current open-air structure into a four-season building with walls and windows.

"We've got some opportunity in the winter season," Kennedy said, noting that the resort's location near Yellowstone's north gate — open year-round — positions them perfectly for winter visitors.

New thermal walkways are being installed and a new pebble coating in the pool bottoms designed to cut cleaning time in half while resisting algae growth. 

Gone are the long soaks at the Boiling River where rocks, sand and algae greeted bathers in search of the perfect thermal blend of hot and cold water. 

Yellowstone Hot Springs now fills the void left by the 2022 floods that washed away the Boiling River bathing site.

These carefully designed springs, like a shifting river bottom, will continue to change and evolve.

“When we first opened, the water was turquoise,” said Kennedy, explaining how rust from the pipes altered the color of the water, making it blue. 

Now that rust gets filtered out, along with sand and other debris, leaving pure hot water from deep in the earth. 

"It is completely separate from the hot water that fed the Boiling River,” said Kennedy. “It is separate from the hot water that feeds Old Faithful. But there's less particles and things like that will dirty up the water. 

"It is beautiful, and you want that.”

David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.