Volunteer hopes to make ‘Sleeping Child Hot Springs for All’ a reality

By Russ Lawrence

Ask people for their favorite memories of Sleeping Child Hot Springs, and you’ll get stories of high school graduation parties, family reunions, or romantic dates. You’ll hear from people who worked there, and people who learned to swim there.
Ask Dorinda Troutman, one of the leaders of an effort to re-open Sleeping Child to the general public, for her favorite memory of the place, and she just laughs.
“There’s your lead,” she said, admitting that she’d never been to Sleeping Child Hot Springs.
“We were poor and working all the time,” she explained. “We couldn’t figure out how to take all the kids, so we never made it.”
Troutman is one of the founders of “Sleeping Child Hot Springs for All,” a tax-exempt non-profit organization that was chartered last year.
Their goal is “to acquire, permanently conserve, manage and protect the special place that is Sleeping Child Hot Springs, and to make it available for use by all people.”
“I had no idea how to accomplish it,” she admitted, and they’re still far from coming up with a workable plan. Her goal is to work on obtaining the facility, then to turn it over to another entity to operate it.
Troutman’s involvement dates back to her retirement in the last days of 2013, when she began looking for a project to take on. She noticed that whenever the hot springs came up in conversation, people became wistful, recalling happy memories of the storied hot springs.
And so she had her project.
She initiated a small working group, and they began contacting hot springs throughout the west with non-traditional ownership or management arrangements. “They encouraged me, and gave me the heart to pursue it,” said Troutman, sharing bylaws and operating guidelines. Examples include Thermopolis hot springs in Wyoming; Lava and Cascade hot springs in Idaho; Oregon’s Breitenbush hot springs, which sports a retreat and conference center; and Valley View hot springs in Colorado, which exists as part of a land trust.
“It will pencil out,” she asserted confidently. As a business, it might involve developing a “wellness center,” she imagines, and she also would love to see shuttles running from Hamilton, and expansion of nearby walking and cycling trails.
Though they have not yet developed a strategy for acquiring the iconic resort, nor started raising money, they have been raising public awareness of their effort, with a Facebook page, and a booth at the Farmer’s Market. Coalition-building with compatible groups is on the horizon.
Early on, Sleeping Child Hot Springs for All reached out to engage the Salish, in honor of their longstanding relationship with the place. One of the fruits of that outreach is the event coming up on Saturday, March 7, featuring storyteller Tony Incashola (see sidebar for details).
The common story that is told of how the area came to be called “Sleeping Child” – “Snetetšé” in the Salish tongue – involves the Nez Perce war of 1877, but Troutman debunked that story as romantic, but implausible. The traditional Salish story, she claimed, is more authentic but, like many Coyote stories, is “not pretty.”
Sleeping Child hot springs, located 12 miles up the scenic canyon of the same name, were well-known to the Bitterroot Salish and other early inhabitants of the valley. Troutman explained that hot springs were universally acknowledged as places where even warring groups could meet in peace, to enjoy their healing thermal waters.
White settlers eventually acquired the area, which now comprises a tract of 40 acres, completely surrounded by the Bitterroot National Forest. Bitterrooters today recall the modest lodge next to a concrete pool, with two smaller hot pools set above it, but the site has seen everything from tents to a hotel, which burned.
In the early 90’s, Spokane developer Ed Chopot purchased the resort, closed it to the public, and razed the existing structures. In their place he erected a 5-story, 25,000-square-foot lodge, with living and conference areas, capped with a solarium — along with a heliport (and hangar), caretaker’s residence, and four condos.
The entire (gated) property, including the paved areas, is heated geothermally by the abundant, 130-degree waters.
Chopot sold the property to Hamilton investors Harold Mildenberger and John Blahnik, who currently have the property listed for rent at $1,500 per night, and for sale at $12.9 million.
That’s a lot of money, but Troutman has assembled a board and a team of believers. She acknowledges the need to arrive at a mutually-beneficial purchase agreement with the current owners, operating as Sleeping Child LLC, and is considering everything from land trust models, to public/private partnerships.
The group welcomes anyone with the ideas and energy to make it happen.
The effort is worth it to Troutman because she believes that such places are great public resources, which should be accessible to a wide swath of the community – even to working parents who can’t scrape together enough to treat all their kids to a hot, therapeutic soak.