Molly’s Hot Springs

Molly’s Hot Springs is a log-dam and rock-bordered pool in the Boise National Forest’s Warm Lake area, a quarter-mile from the forest road — the best-known soak of the Molly’s cluster, close enough to the road to stay popular but far enough to feel like a real find. Its temperature is adjustable via a hose-and-valve system fed from the source.

Mile-16 Hot Springs

Mile-16 Hot Springs — better known to regulars as Fire Crew (and sometimes Sugah) — is a single rock-mortared pool beside the South Fork Salmon River in the Boise National Forest, northeast of Cascade in the Warm Lake/Yellow Pine area. Not to be confused with the unrelated Fire Crew Hot Springs near Crouch: this one’s nickname comes from the Krassel workstation fire crew that built the soak in 1980–81, and “Mile-16” dates from when the road was unpaved and the spring sat exactly 16 miles down it.

By Golly Molly Hot Springs

By Golly Molly Hot Springs — also known as Molly’s Trolley — is a pair of well-built rock pools in the Boise National Forest northeast of Cascade, Idaho, in the Warm Lake area and part of the greater Molly’s hot springs cluster. It comes with an honest caveat: despite the solid construction, there has historically been no actual soak here.

Burgdorf Hot Springs

Burgdorf Hot Springs is a historic, rustic hot springs resort and ghost town on private land surrounded by the Payette National Forest, about 30 miles north of McCall, Idaho. Founded in the 1870s, Burgdorf soaks visitors in three historic log-sided pools fed by two ~113°F sources — and today it runs reservation-only, booked online in advance.

Buckhorn Hot Springs

Buckhorn Hot Springs is a hard-to-find soak on Buckhorn Creek in the Payette National Forest, in the Warm Lake/Yellow Pine area. A gradually inclined 5-mile hike — gaining more than 1,000 feet on an overgrown old forest road — keeps use low at a meadow- and forest-edged spring with a rock-walled pool and a stand-up hot shower.

Secesh Hot Springs

Secesh Hot Springs is a chain of rock pools perched high above the Secesh River in the Payette National Forest, in the Warren area northeast of McCall. Reaching them takes a river ford followed by a quarter-mile, near-vertical scramble — and the payoff is some of the softest hot springs water in Idaho, in a place that sees very little use.

White Licks Hot Springs

White Licks Hot Springs is one of Idaho’s most unusual soaks: two small shacks in the Payette National Forest between Council and Donnelly, each sheltering a single cement pool with its own pair of hot and warm intake pipes — plug and unplug the pipes to dial in your own soaking temperature.

Council Mountain Hot Springs

Council Mountain Hot Springs — also known as Laurel Hot Springs — is a rock-walled soak in the Payette National Forest near Council, Idaho, reached by a forest trail climbing the side of Council Mountain. The single pool runs about 96–98°F, warming as the season progresses, and sees only moderate use.

Bernard Warm Springs

Bernard Warm Springs — also known as Smalley — is a long-forgotten warm spring in the Boise National Forest near Cascade, Idaho. Once a full-fledged hot springs resort, its seldom-used pool now sits inside the remnants of the old resort’s foundation, soaking at a mild 98°F.

Weir Creek Hot Springs

Weir Creek Hot Springs is a crystal-clear forest soak in the Clearwater National Forest near Lolo, Montana, reached by a short but steep hike from the Highway 12 corridor. Its enlarged main pool runs 105–108°F and holds 8–10 soakers, making it one of the most popular wilderness soaks in North-Central Idaho — expect company, and pack out more than you pack in.