The first thing that goes are your toes. But the numbing doesn’t end there. Next up are the fingers and, if you sit in this 45-degree chrome tub long enough, the whole body succumbs. The only refuge from this prickly assault on your nerves is the opposite sensation: heat within the nearby 200-degree sauna. Queue the Ethio-jazz, add sweat-soaked strangers and sprinkle in a few ferns and you’ve got Portal, the pop-up thermaculture club located off Sanitas Brewing’s back patio in Boulder.
Although it’s the city’s first iteration of such a club, thermaculture has been gaining traction in the health and wellness community around the country. It’s especially popular in the Midwest, where the combination of Scandinavian cultural roots and saunas on the shores of frozen lakes have helped make thermaculture clubs trendy in cities like Minneapolis.
After gaining traction at its temporary location since first opening in January, Portal is planning to move into a TBD brick-and-mortar location twice as big by the end of the year. Will Drescher, one of the company’s founders, said the club’s allure is more than just hot and cold temperature cycles.
“It’s an ancient practice,” he said. “The Scandinavians have been doing it forever. The Indigenous people here have the hot springs culture. It’s a really analogue way for people to connect in a world where people are becoming more and more disconnected.”
‘You want to put a what in my where?’
Drescher’s introduction to thermaculture began behind a strip mall in Minneapolis.
“The cold plunge was a 200-gallon white Grizzly cooler, and the sauna was a horse trailer,” said Drescher, who lived in the city for a decade before moving to Boulder last year.
The DIY setup eventually became a company called Embrace North, which he called a “really low-barrier-to-entry social club.” He became a regular, and it was there that the friendship with Portal’s co-founder Rory MacMurdo took off. The pair decided to start their own business after a trip to the desert.
“We were actually up in Moab, and we were listening to the Khruangbin album Mordechai,” Drescher said. “And we were like, ‘What if we just made Embrace North, but it sounded and looked like this?’ That’s Portal.”
Check out this custom playlist created by Portal co-founder Will Drescher bit.ly/4g0r5hQ
The club built its first pop-up in Boulder, where Drescher saw people who were “pretty open minded and value wellness.” After struggling to find a space in the city’s commercial real estate market, Drescher approached Sanitas Brewing owner Mike Memsic, who had recently gotten into thermaculture and was “down for the cause.”
“It was really hard to find a landlord that really understood what we were doing, especially given that the area didn’t really have a scene,” Drescher said. “A lot of people were like, ‘You want to put a what in my where?’”
Heating up
Portal isn’t the only company benefiting from a thermaculture surge.
Located in Longmont, Mountain Mist Spa and Sauna sells saunas and cold baths for residential and commercial customers across the state.
“We’ve sold saunas for 25 years,” said owner Tyler Smith. “We’ve sold more of them in the last five years than we did the 15 before that.”
Smith said the increase in popularity partially came during COVID, but was also boosted by the “health and wellness kick.”
Some studies have found passive heat therapy from saunas can decrease health risks like hypertension and certain respiratory conditions, while improving mental health and sleep. Others say that to understand the longevity of benefits and potential side effects, there should be more long-term data collection, spanning decades.
When it comes to cold plunges, there’s evidence they can help reduce inflammation and muscle soreness, possibly due to the constriction of blood vessels reacting to the low temperatures, according to the Mayo Clinic.
“It’s very much in right now,” said Smith, adding that his company sells hundreds of saunas a year, including one to Coach Prime last year (which the Buffs football coach endorses in a video on their website).
Sauna prices vary: Smith said their bestsellers hover around $6,000, but custom models can reach up to $50,000.
Due to demand and lowering costs, Mountain Mist has also started a push in the last six months to sell more cold baths, too, which typically run between $7,000 and $9,000.
‘The great equalizer’
At Portal, up to 16 customers at a time can book one-hour sessions for self-guided cycling between four cold plunges and two Finnish saunas. Plunge temperatures stay near 45 degrees, while wood-fired saunas hover around 200 degrees.
Drescher said just as important as the health and fitness aspects is simply providing the space for people to connect, something that comes from the club’s social events and the experience of roasting side-by-side in wooden boxes.
“The sauna is kind of like the great equalizer,” he said. “Everyone’s uncomfortable, everyone’s dressed at a certain level, and I think that just leads to breaking down a lot of barriers to connection.”
During a recent Thursday evening inside one of the saunas, it’s quiet with a few bursts of chatting. The most lively conversation is about what people have seen on the other side of the heat box’s window that faces the Sanitas patio. One woman witnessed a dog repeatedly snag bites out of their owner’s quesadilla. Someone else talked about watching a birthday party for a cat.
Compared to other micro-communities, Drescher said Portal is an accessible club for people who “can just show up and be a part of something.”
“Then also if you want to sit in the corner of the sauna and cold plunge and leave, that’s totally cool, too.”
While the company looks to find a permanent location in Boulder before the end of the year, it also has plans to bring the pop-up to Denver, and eventually expand nationwide.
“The grand vision is you can go anywhere and get in a Portal.”
Boulder Weekly writer Gabby Vermeire (aka Whole Foods Daddy) recently wrote that Portal’s vibes were “predictably horny.” When asked about that speculation, Will Drescher responded, “We are not horny. We’re just happy you’re here.”