On the Spa Trail

BY ANDREW TOLVE

OUR INTREPID WRITER DOGGEDLY SEEKS OUT THE ULTIMATE IN SUMMIT REJUVENATION

 

“A friend of mine described it really well,” says Christina Komeshian, an esthetician at Serenity Spa & Salon. “She says she thinks of spas as spiritual centers of the future. They bring people together. Friends will come in and get pedicures together, and then they sit and talk. It’s almost like the barbershop for women. What people aren’t getting in other areas of life, they can come and get at the spa.”

It's particularly true in Summit, a county that has at least three times as many spas as it does towns. Komeshian’s Serenity Spa is located on Highway 6 in Keystone, little more than a stone’s throw away from the spa at Keystone Lodge. Following the highway a few miles farther north to Swan Mountain Road, and take that over to Breckenridge, you’ll find another ten spas waiting with temptations of facials, scrubs, body wraps and other such luxurious treatments.

Whether they be spiritual centers of the future or not, the spas in Summit certainly offer a soothing alternative to life on the slopes. 

 

Blue Sage Spa 

 

Despite its rather utilitarian look from the outside, Serenity Spa & Salon in Keystone has all the ambiance of a top-tier, new-age health center. From its sleek entrance lounge to its intimate treatment rooms to its spotless lockers, everything inside just feels right; as if the owners have prioritized quality over everything else. This might explain why it was voted the 2005 “Best Spa of the Year” by the Summit Daily News.

When I arrived, I was greeted with a cup of licorice-root and peppermint tea and then shuttled into a small relaxation room with a fireplace, bamboo stalks and soothing music to further set the mood. In that span of five minutes, three different employees checked in on me to make sure I was enjoying my experience.

Co-owner Matt Walsh identified such customer service as the spa’s most distinctive attribute. “The way we treat our customers from the moment they walk in, it’s a complete experience,” he explains. “You may be coming for a massage, for a facial, for a haircut, but what sets us apart from everyone is our customer service and our knowledgeable staff.”

And the products they use, he notes. Serenity is the only AVEDA day spa in the county, so every massage, body wrap, glow treatment and facial they perform uses an all-natural AVEDA product. My two treatments at the spa were a facial and a massage, both of which were heavily colored by the AVEDA line.

“What I like about AVEDA,” says my esthetician Christina Komeshian, “is that they raised awareness about the use of natural ingredients in hair and skincare products amongst the mass population. They work with indigenous cultures around the world to infuse their products with the best ingredients possible which benefits both third world economies and consumers. And best of all, they have created a skincare line with products to treat all skin types.”

My skin was diagnosed as being a little dry, so she used a creamy clay mask to draw out impurities without drying out the skin any further. She also added some of AVEDA’s Dry Infusion, a special blend of essential oils, to soften the pores to allow for easier extractions. Adding infusions or customizing with single essential oils, whatever your skin type is the beauty of the AVEDA skincare line.

“If I’m working on somebody with sensitive skin, I can add a little geranium to their moisturizer or mask to help soothe their skin,” Komeshian says. “If somebody is acneic, I can add a little tea-tree oil for extra antibacterial effects. Basically I can customize a facial to suit individual client needs.”

“AVEDA tries so hard to make sure that everything is held to an extremely professional standard and to provide a really good product to make it very professional,” my massage therapist, Amy Kilian, adds. “And that’s really what I like best. They’re always improving. As far as massage, they really try to blend Eastern and Western philosophies.”

That translated into a slow, thoughtful massage that, like the facial before it, left my body feeling fresh and revived, rather than sore. When my body work was finished — both the massage and the facial ended with hot stones being rubbed over my body — I returned to the relaxation room, where Walsh was waiting for me.

“You look totally comatose,” he laughs. “That’s pretty common around these parts.”

 

”I have so much respect for what massage can do for a person. It’s not just about how you feel when it’s happening. That’s good, that’s great. But when you come out, you just feel like a ton of weight has come off your shoulders. It takes the cares of the world away for a while. And because I have such an ingrained respect for massage and what it can do, I really want therapists here who are totally able to meet the needs of people.”

That’s Ronni Dempsey, spa and fitness center manager at the Spa at Keystone Lodge, speaking. The spa she oversees is located on the first floor of the expansive Keystone Lodge, just a few minutes north of Serenity Spa & Salon. The spa is quite a bit larger than Serenity, serving home to a steam room, two hot tubs, a dry sauna, a fitness center, five treatment rooms and a locker room with 50 lockers (versus only four in the men’s room at Serenity!). Guests of the Lodge receive complimentary use of fitness center, and the same holds true for any guest of the spa itself.

“I think the fact that we’re in the Keystone Lodge is part of (what makes us unique),” Dempsey said. “That, for example, we give out a card for a complimentary glass of champagne at Champeaux (the gourmet restaurant at Keystone Lodge).… And then if they want to stay and use the fitness center all day, they can. If they want to bring clothes and go to Champeux after their treatment, they can.”

But for Dempsey, who used to be a massage therapist herself, all of that is ancillary to the treatment itself. She prides herself on keeping good massage therapists on staff and on offering reasonably priced packages that couple different treatment options. Packages, she said, are the new trend in the spa world, whether that means pairing facials with massages or salt scrubs with pedicures.

“One other really popular thing,” Dempsey says, “is (a guest will) get an ‘Enhancement,’ a foot treatment or a hand-and-arm treatment added on to their massage. So if a person either doesn’t have time or maybe even the wherewithal for a whole package, they can still have more than just the massage.”

My package included a facial, a half-hour massage and then a half-hour herb body wrap, all of which was excellent. My massage at the Lodge was more aggressive than my massage at Serenity, and my facial was particularly memorable thanks to the Éminence product line that my esthetician, Terry Wilczynski, used. Éminence is a handmade organic skin care line out of Hungary, all of its products being ones you’d like to eat as much as you’d like to lather yourself with. Crushed peaches, carrot vitamin, pumpkin orange and quince apple are just a few of their many masques.

“They’re yummy,” Wilczynski agrees. “I’d almost like to eat them. That’s what I like about this line. They’re like food for your skin. Like you put the good food inside of your body instead of the donuts or the food to get energy. It should be the same thing with your skin. Treat your skin with good products.” 

The Spa at Keystone Lodge will undergo an extensive $1.5 million renovation late this summer delivering 1,900 additional square feet. During this renovation, the spa will be fully operational as the treatment rooms will relocated to nearby guest rooms in Keystone Lodge.  http://keystonelodge.rockresorts.com/info/spa.asp

 

The Lodge & Spa at Breckenridge has a saying: “Nature created the view. We create the experience.” And it doesn’t take long to catch their drift. The spa stands on a scenic outcrop atop Boreas Pass at 10,200 feet, offering spectacular views in every direction. Many of the treatment rooms have windows looking out upon the rugged Baldy Mountain, and the bottom level of the spa has a deck and an outdoor Jacuzzi with views of the Ten-Mile Range.

So that’s the view. As for the experience, the spa has a similar feel to Keystone Lodge & Spa with labyrinthine hallways that lead to pools, Jacuzzis, a fitness center and (if you search hard enough) old racket ball courts that used to be popular in the ’80s.

“It’s nice that you’re not just going and getting your massage and then going home,” says spa manager Jeni Friedrich. “You can hang out the whole day. And your treatment entitles you to any of our classes. We do Pilates, T’ai Chi and Kung Fu, and they’re all free. Plan to come out on a Tuesday and you can do each one of them.”

That’s not saying that the spa treatments themselves are anything to sniffle at. The spa features two product lines with a distinctly Colorado flair — Shankara, an all natural product out of Telluride, and Fall River Blending Company, an essential-oil line manufactured locally near Mary’s Glacier — and Friedrich recently added Pedonia to the spa’s selection. It’s usually in-house guests of the lodge who are putting those products to work, Friedrich notes, but guests from down in Breckenridge and bridal parties are also common.

“We had about 45 weddings last summer, and entire bridal parties would come down,” Friedrich adds. “The bride’s maids would get facials, manicures, pedicures, and then the groomsmen would all get facials and massages, too.”

My package at the spa included a mud wrap followed by a massage, both of which were performed by Mat Skalka, the only male massage therapist I encountered on my tour. The strength of his massage was excellent, and the mud wrap — which included the application first, then getting rolled up like a burrito in a plastic wrap and finally showering off — was utterly relaxing.

“The funniest thing, for every person who’s adamant about having a woman, there’s an equal amount who are adamant about having a male (massage therapist),” Friedrich says. “And it’s not ever what you would think. Some men don’t want to have another woman touching them. They don’t feel comfortable with that, and others just can’t imagine being massaged by a man. But I think once you’re in there, that goes away.”