South-Central Idaho holds the deepest bench of hot springs in the state, stretching from the Boise National Forest and the Sawtooth Mountains down to the Snake River plain. River soaks like Kirkham, Bonneville and Pine Flats line the Payette River canyons north of Boise, backcountry pools hide along the Middle Fork of the Boise River and around Stanley and Atlanta, and developed resorts, including Miracle and Banbury near Buhl, The Springs in Idaho City and Silver Creek Plunge, make soaking easy in any season. Winter access varies sharply with elevation: low canyon pools can be reached year-round, while high forest roads close with snow until late spring.
Cove Creek Hot Springs is a small, undeveloped soak on the north bank of the Salmon River, about 8 miles east of Stanley below Idaho Highway 75. Hot water seeps out of the riverbed gravel and a granite outcrop into volunteer-built rock and sand pools at the water’s edge, and a designated parking lot with…
Bull Creek Hot Springs is an undeveloped spring on Bull Creek, a tributary of the Middle Fork Payette River, in the roadless backcountry of the Boise National Forest north of Crouch. It is a named USGS feature, prominent enough that the 7.5-minute topo map covering it is the Bull Creek Hot Springs quadrangle. What it…
Closure notice: Guyer Hot Springs is closed to the public, and it has been since the resort shut in 1929. The spring sits on private land in Ketchum’s Warm Springs neighborhood, and the owners’ development application argues for “maintaining the subject property without public access.” Online maps may pin “Guyer Hot Springs” near warm seeps…
Some Idaho hot springs take effort to reach. White Arrow Hot Springs takes a reservation for an entire ranch. North of Bliss in the Clover Creek valley, White Arrow Ranch is a private, 330 acre property whose natural hot spring feeds a guest pool, heats the lodge floors, and carries more than a century of…
Mormon Bend Hot Springs is an undeveloped spring on the far bank of the Salmon River, about 8 miles northeast of Stanley. There is no bridge, no trail, and no developed pool: just hand-built rock and sand pools at the river’s edge, across from the Forest Service’s Mormon Bend Campground on Idaho Highway 75. Reaching…
At the end of Grandjean Road, where the gravel runs out at the edge of the Sawtooth Wilderness, Sawtooth Lodge has been soaking travelers since 1927. The lodge is a private, historic outpost on the South Fork of the Payette River: log cabins, yurts, tent meadows, an RV park, a restaurant, and a geothermal pool…
Closure notice: Hailey Hot Springs is closed to the public. There is no public soaking access here, and there has not been since the resort hotel burned in 1899. The spring sits on Hailey Hot Springs Ranch, now held by the Wood River Land Trust, which is developing a long-term access plan with the Blaine…
North of Ketchum on State Highway 75, Easley Hot Springs is a developed, family friendly soaking complex in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area: a full size outdoor swimming pool fed directly by the springs, two soaking tubs overlooking it, and a small general store. The complex sits on Sawtooth National Forest land and is run…
Nat Soo Pah Hot Springs & Campground is a family owned hot springs resort in the high desert farmland south of Twin Falls. It is an old fashioned summer soak: a very large geothermal swimming pool with a waterslide and diving boards, a hotter soaking pool, a hydro jet tub, and a grassy RV park…
This unnamed hot spring in the Boise National Forest’s Atlanta area is a cliffside seep on the Middle Fork Boise River: hot water streaked with bright algae flows down a cliff face straight into the river, and there is no pool to soak in. The only way to enjoy it is the late-summer way — wade in at low water where the hot meets the cold, and possibly dig out a small pool of your own.
