White Arrow Hot Springs

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 Idaho history. It is not open to the public: there is no day use, no drop-in soaking, and no public pool schedule. The only way into this water is to rent the whole ranch.

For the one group that books it, the package is unusual even by Idaho standards: a 7,000 square foot lodge, a private pool kept between 90 and 104 degrees, two cold spring lakes busy with cranes and swans, and a past that runs from a 1930s health sanatorium to a landmark Idaho Supreme Court case.

Soak Stats

Location	Clover Creek valley, about 9 to 10 miles north of Bliss in Gooding County
Elevation	About 3,300 feet
Soak type	Private hot spring pool at a whole-property vacation rental
Water temperature	Pool kept at 90 to 104°F; source documented at 145 to 149°F in scientific surveys
Access	Private property. Rental guests only; no public day use and no drop-in visits
Land & management	Private ranch, owned by the Miller family since 2013
Facilities	7,000 sq ft lodge with 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms, dining table for 18, game room, two cold spring lakes

The Soaking Experience

The ranch pool is the soak: a private hot spring pool the property keeps between 90 and 104°F, so a renting group can run it warm for swimming or hot for a proper evening soak. The same spring water works a second job, flowing through the lodge floors as geothermal radiant heat. Scientific surveys have documented the source itself at 145 to 149°F, flowing at about 1,200 gallons per minute, and the spring forms a stream across the property before the water goes to irrigation.

The setting is working ranch country softened by water. Two cold spring lakes on the property serve as a wildlife sanctuary for sandhill cranes, swans, and ducks, and the Clover Creek valley rolls out around the lodge in pasture and high desert.

Location, Map & Directions

White Arrow Ranch sits at 1061 Clover Creek Road, about 9 to 10 miles north of Bliss in Gooding County, near the historic Oregon Short Line railroad stop of Blanche. Twin Falls is about 40 miles away and Boise about 90. The ranch is private: there is nothing to visit without a booking, and renters get their arrival details from the property.

Place Information

Address	1061 Clover Creek Road, Bliss, ID 83314 (Gooding County)
Website	White Arrow Ranch
YouTube	White Arrow Ranch official video
Booking	Whole-ranch rental through the property’s website; the ranch is also listed on Vrbo and Airbnb

Renting the Ranch

The property pitches itself plainly: “Reserve the White Arrow Ranch for a retreat with friends, family, or colleagues.” The lodge runs 7,000 square feet with 6 bedrooms and 8 bathrooms, a dining table that seats 18, and a game room, and the rental includes the hot spring pool and the grounds. One group at a time takes the entire 330 acres, which makes it a family reunion, retreat, or group getaway property rather than a soaking stop. Rates and minimum stays are published on the ranch’s own booking channels, so check the website for current terms.

History

Local tradition holds that the ranch name comes from an Indigenous camp at the site noted for making white arrowheads, and geothermal histories report the ranch was settled in the 1800s and deserted for a time before its resort era. By about 1930 the spring was developed and drawing visitors.

Scientist Charles T. Brues documented the “White Arrow Sanitorium, Blanche, Idaho” as entry No. 86 in his 1932 study of North American hot springs. Blanche was the Oregon Short Line station on US 30, and Brues describes a large flow forming a stream that ran several hundred yards before disappearing on a flat, with water diverted into irrigation ditches and warm collecting water along the stream. The sanatorium was a health resort built on that flow.

The spring’s most remarkable story came a decade later. Lois Penland, a 21 year old Bliss schoolteacher stricken with infantile paralysis (polio) in 1939, was told she would likely never leave a bed or wheelchair, then that she had improved as much as she ever would. In the summer of 1941 she spent many weeks at White Arrow, most of each day in the pool. By the spring of 1942 she had thrown away her leg braces and could walk slowly without even crutches, and she planned to return that summer and to teach again the next year.

The modern ranch era belongs to Bob and Barnee Erkins. The couple bought a trout farm at Buhl in 1952 and built Snake River Trout Company into what their obituaries call the world’s largest trout company. They moved to White Arrow Ranch in 1976 and put the 65 degree Celsius spring water to work growing food: two geothermally heated tomato greenhouses, each about 40 by 130 feet, warmed through heat exchangers and roughly 3 kilometers of black plastic pipe, with harvests running September to July. Tree seedlings were later grown in the same heated greenhouses.

In 1984 the Erkins founded Bliss Valley Foods at the ranch to raise gourmet oyster mushrooms with geothermal heat. The company borrowed $3,150,000 from Idaho First National Bank against the ranch, valued at $5.5 million, and when the mushroom operation failed, the foreclosure fight produced a landmark Idaho Supreme Court decision, Idaho First National Bank v. Bliss Valley Foods, Inc. (1991); later federal litigation recorded that a trial jury had awarded the Erkins $2,001,000 and Bliss Valley $3,100,000 on a lender liability counterclaim. Bob Erkins died in April 2017 and Barnee that December, both by then living at Wendell.

The ranch’s current chapter began in 2013, when the Ronald Lee and Laura Lee Miller family trusts acquired the 330 acre ranch for their Laura Lee Farms hydroponic produce venture, choosing it for three renewable energy sources: geothermal heat with pure water, wind, and solar. The Jackson Hole based family still uses the ranch as its Idaho base, and the property now runs as the whole-ranch vacation rental described above.

Safety & Health

White Arrow’s pool is a maintained private pool for rental guests, and the usual hot water common sense applies: take breaks, stay hydrated, and supervise children. The source water elsewhere on the ranch is far hotter than the pool, the property is a working ranch, and none of it is open to uninvited visitors.

Best Time to Visit

As a private rental, timing belongs to the group that books it. The hot end of the pool’s range argues for the cold months, when a 104 degree soak under high desert stars is the whole point, while summer brings the lakes, the cranes and swans, and long evenings on 330 acres of pasture.

Nearby Hot Springs

White Arrow itself is guests only, so for a public soak in the same Magic Valley corridor, the developed pools at Miracle and Banbury Hot Springs near Buhl are the classic stop, and south of Twin Falls, Nat Soo Pah Hot Springs pairs a big swimming pool with a campground. More South-Central Idaho hot springs →

Frequently Asked Questions

Is White Arrow Hot Springs open to the public?

No. White Arrow Ranch is private property with no day use, no public pool hours, and no drop-in soaking. The only access is renting the entire ranch, lodge, pool, and grounds as a single vacation rental.

How do you book White Arrow Ranch?

The whole property rents through the ranch’s own website, and it is also listed on Vrbo and Airbnb. Rates and minimum stays are published on those booking channels.

How hot is the water at White Arrow?

The guest pool is kept between 90 and 104°F. Scientific surveys have documented the source at 145 to 149°F; the ranch describes its spring as 175°F water, a figure no published measurement matches.

How big are the ranch and the lodge?

The ranch covers 330 acres in the Clover Creek valley north of Bliss. The lodge is 7,000 square feet with 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms, a dining table for 18, and a game room, and the grounds include two cold spring lakes.

What is the history of White Arrow Hot Springs?

The spring ran as the White Arrow Sanitorium health resort by about 1930, hosted a remarkable polio recovery story in 1941 and 1942, and later powered the Erkins family’s geothermal greenhouses and the Bliss Valley Foods mushroom venture, whose collapse produced a landmark 1991 Idaho Supreme Court case. The Miller family bought the ranch in 2013.