You’re Hot Then You’re Cold
Cold Plunging Meets Sauna at Pleasant Beach
By Christy Carlie
Photos courtesy Fire+Floe
Mikal Foushee says she’s “kind of a high tide snob.”
The owner of Fire+Floe sauna on Pleasant Beach has been cold plunging regularly for years and her aversion to low tides makes sense: a distance between warm layers and the water’s edge can make for a less pleasurable experience. What began as a New Year’s Day pier jump with friends turned into a weekly––then almost daily––ritual.
“I’ve always lived close to the water,” said Foushee, who grew up on Bainbridge and moved back to the island after years spent in LA and Seattle.
“But not until you actually plunge do you feel like you live near the water. You pay attention to things you don’t normally pay attention to: tides, seaweed, different garbage. You see nature a little bit differently when you are in it every day like that,” said Foushee.
Fire+Floe offers both private and communal sauna sessions, which allow visitors to move back and forth as they wish between the heat and––if they’re brave enough––the Sound’s icy waters.
Foushee’s idea for the sauna surfaced after tagging along on her husband’s work trip to Denmark in the spring of 2023. Already keen on plunging in the PNW, the couple decided they’d give it a shot in Scandinavia. They rented a car and drove around to major bathhouses, absorbing the culture of cold plunge and sauna. Noticing similarities in the weather and environment, Foushee wondered why there wasn’t a more robust sauna network on her home turf.
Since opening Fire+Floe in 2024, Foushee has connected with a growing cohort of fellow “saunapreneurs” in the area. A number of saunas now grace the shores of Lake Union in Seattle (including sauna boats that offer cruises). Foushee is also part of an international group of women sauna owners who call themselves the Sirens and meet regularly online to discuss technical questions and business practices. In January, she’s headed to the West Coast Sauna Conference, taking place on a lake in British Columbia.
While the sauna trend may be booming in the PNW, the custom dates back millennia, with Finnish saunas traditionally serving both secular and spiritual purposes, sharing some similarities with indigenous sweat lodge practices in the Americas.
The Fire+Floe sauna was constructed by Timber Sauna Co., a company based in Michigan and founded by brothers of Finnish ancestry. The portfolio of sleek designs offered by Timber includes mobile saunas like Foushee’s, in-home saunas and floating saunas.
The Fire+Floe sauna is wood burning, with one insulated glass wall offering natural light and (as with the experience of Puget Sound plunging) a connection to the outdoors.
“I have always loathed winter,” Foushee said. But owning the sauna has made the darker months of the year a little more enjoyable, if not 100 percent bearable. As for the cold plunge: Does immersing oneself in the frigid waters of the Salish Sea get easier after a while?
“Never,” said Foushee.
Still, she describes the feeling as invigorating.
In her previous job as a project manager, Foushee had a heavy workload. “I’d have to get all this stuff done on my list and just push through and not feel things,” she said. But being in the water is the opposite of that.
“I want to feel the cold,” she said. “I don’t push away all the hard things.”
Even so, Foushee is careful to listen to her body and encourages others to do the same. Some days, she can spend minutes in the water. Other days, only seconds. Her tolerance for the heat of the sauna also varies.
“Your body is different every day,” she said.
As for the health benefits of hot/cold contrast therapy, Foushee can’t make promises. Some research points to a correlation with brain and heart health, but the mechanisms aren’t fully understood. Still, Foushee says that regulars at Fire+Floe have reported better sleep. In the darker months of winter, when the temptation sets in to burrow at home, the sauna can have another benefit as well: offering what Foushee calls a “community gathering ritual,” similar to the traditional saunas in Nordic countries.
At Fire+Floe, Foushee says that community sessions attract the most visitors. “They either bring a friend or they know nobody and then they end up leaving with lots of friends”
