The Bad Doctor Knew How To Die In Style. By Kevin Franklin IF YOU GOTTA die, you can't beat Glenwood Springs, Colorado. I'm not sure Doc Holliday was thinking this when he retreated here with his ultimately fatal tuberculosis, but it would've crossed my mind. Hell, it's hard to beat Glenwood Springs even if you don't have a sniffle. About 150 miles west of Denver, it's nestled on the west slope of the Rockies. The Colorado River, still in its sparkling infancy, runs through town. The Roaring Fork and Crystal rivers converge nearby, and their confluence with the Colorado is just on the west side of town. Unlike its pricey neighbors, Vail and Aspen, Glenwood Springs is mostly undiscovered by the hordes. But by my reckoning, there's not much those towns have to offer a budget-minded traveler like myself that Glenwood Springs doesn't. Just 10 miles to the south is Sunlight Mountain Resort, a world-class Colorado ski mountain with cheap lift tickets. Monday through Wednesday you can zip down one of 50 runs for $20. Otherwise lift tickets run $28. After a long day of skiing, hot springs await for two-plankers and knuckle-draggers alike. Through a stroke of geologic good fortune, hydrothermal water percolates up through the landscape and feeds into the Colorado. Depending on your preference, you can sink into the world's largest developed hot springs pool, or walk down the railroad tracks to one of several "hippie dips." Hippie dips, or hot pots, are circles of rocks built around natural hot springs. These springs percolate right into the liquid ice of the Colorado and are free to anyone inclined to trudge through the snow to find them. But more tempting than any of this is the allure of damn fine beer. Glenwood Canyon Brewery is a brew pub inside the Hotel Denver in downtown Glenwood Springs. Let me be up front and acknowledge that my brother Ken is the brewmeister there, which is how this whole trip started. But all genetic affiliation aside, it's some of the best beer going, and I defy any beer aficionado to differ. Doc Holliday, of OK Corral fame, was about 100 years early to try my bro's hops and barley, but Doc's grave is still here for history buffs to visit. A pair of six-shooters and a poker hand of four aces and an eight are etched onto his tombstone. It's too bad Wyatt Earp ended up in Los Angeles. I think the Doc's gun-slinging friend would have found this final resting place more to his taste than the crime and concrete of L.A. Local rumor has it, however, the Doc is not actually buried here. When he died, the weather was too bad to reach the cemetery, so it was decided to "temporarily" bury him elsewhere until the spring thaw and then move him to his eternal digs. Another story has it that, because of his accumulated enemies, he was buried in secret somewhere else. Who knows--maybe the irrepressible Doc Holliday will pop up again before long. After sampling a selection of Ken's brew, my brother Rick and I amble down to the hippie dips. We follow the railroad tracks a half-mile east of downtown, just shy of the train tunnel. You have to keep in mind the trains here are descending from the Continental Divide and move quickly and quietly. It's not a place to get lost in your thoughts. We slide down the hill to the banks of the Colorado and a steamy kind of heaven. The dips make for a strange juxtaposition. Here you are, body reclining in 100-degree water while your hand can reach into the recently melted waters of the Colorado. It's an odd spectacle, two guys taking a bath in water with chunks of ice floating in it. The fact that it's hot water is conveniently non-apparent. Somehow I have the feeling Doc Holliday would have appreciated our feigned bravado. The next day we hit the slopes. A host of shops in town rent equipment and sell a combination ski slope/hot spring discount ticket. While the hippie dips have the allure of being free, the showers, bubble chairs and sheer size of the developed pool are worth at least one visit. But before I sink into those healing spring waters, I have to negotiate 2,000 feet of vertical drop and skiers almost as bad as I am. Maybe I'll avoid joining the Doc over in the cemetery. But if you gotta go somewhere.... Getting There Several airlines offer good combination airplane/van shuttle deals from Phoenix to Denver with a van ride to Glenwood Springs.

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