At the springs in this collection, soaking without a swimsuit is accepted practice. Most are natural, undeveloped pools on public land where nude soaking has been the custom for decades. Etiquette matters more than rules here: be respectful of other soakers, ask before taking photos anywhere near the pools, and read each listing before you go, because customs can differ from spring to spring and can change over time.
Most Idaho hot springs ask you to share. This one asks you to book the whole place. On Goose Creek between McCall and New Meadows, the Tibbs Family Mountain Retreat is a 10 acre off-grid property where two natural hot springs feed two private pools in the trees above the creek. There is no public…
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.
This unnamed hot spring sits right off the highway near Garden Valley, Idaho, in the Boise National Forest — the old site’s photos show a hot waterfall and an intricate system of plumbing, but no confirmed soaking pool was ever documented here. It remains one of the least-documented listings in the Garden Valley corridor: a genuine curiosity for hot springs completists rather than a known soak.
Lil Dipper Hot Springs is a small hot spring on the Middle Fork Payette River trail in the Boise National Forest north of Crouch, Idaho — you’ll pass it on the hike to Moondipper and Pine Burl. The old listing is honest about it: with low flow and only upper-90s temperatures, Lil Dipper is a landmark on the way to better soaks, not a soak itself.
Prince Albert Hot Springs is a remote two-pool soak in the Mt. Bennett Hills area north of Glenns Ferry, Idaho — and the approach is the story. The dirt road in deteriorates into a creek bed, turns to impassable muck in rain and winter, and defeated both documented attempts to reach it. Plan for the dry season and a capable 4×4.
Russian John Warm Springs is a shallow warm spring north of Ketchum in the Sawtooth National Forest — and “warm” is the honest word for it. Warm water percolates up through the sandy bottom of a mortar-reinforced rock pool, making it a pleasant summer soak and foot-warmer with a view, rather than a hot winter destination.
Worswick Hot Springs spreads hot water all over a hillside in the Sawtooth National Forest, in the Fairfield/Smoky Mountains area: a variety of log- and rock-dammed pools — including a big log-dammed pool on the hill and a culvert pool below the road — with temperatures that vary by pool and by season. Come late in the season and take your pick.
Skillern Hot Springs is one of the finest backcountry soaks in the Smoky Mountains: a solid rock-walled, waterfall-fed pool with a log dam, reached by a roughly 2-hour hike in the Sawtooth National Forest in the Fairfield/Featherville area. Crystal-clear water at 100–106°F, a trailhead campground, and seasonal riverside pools below make it worth every step.
Preis Hot Springs is a tiny roadside soak in the Sawtooth National Forest, in the Fairfield/Smoky Mountains area: a small sunken wooden box, just a few feet from a seasonally busy forest road, holding clear 102°F water. It barely fits two people — nice and snug — and that’s most of its charm.
Pine Burl Hot Springs is a single rock-walled pool at the end of a 2-mile hike in the Boise National Forest north of Crouch, on the Middle Fork of the Payette River trail — past both Moondipper and Lil Dipper. It’s generally the best soak of the three on this creek, with one quirk: its temperature, usually a near-perfect 101–103°F, can vary dramatically.
Moondipper Hot Springs is a single rock-walled pool on a 2-mile hike along the Middle Fork of the Payette River from the Boiling Springs Guard Station, in the Boise National Forest. It’s the lesser sibling of nearby Pine Burl — a good soak in its narrow window, because Moondipper only works when there’s enough cold creek water to tame a source that runs far too hot on its own.
Wild Rose Hot Springs — better known to many Idaho soakers as Milford Sweat (and filed in the old listings as Milford Sweet) — is a black lava rock pool on BLM land near Carey, Idaho. The pool itself is a good size and the water runs clear, but the old listing is blunt about the downside: this heavily used roadside soak has a severe, long-documented trash problem.
Indian Bathtub II Hot Springs — also listed as Lower Indian Bathtub — is a pair of rock-walled pools on the Bruneau River near Bruneau, Idaho. The scenery is first-rate and the 93–96°F water is inviting, but go in with eyes open: this pretty canyon soak has a documented trash problem, and the access road can defeat anything without clearance and four-wheel drive.
Bronco Billy Hot Springs — also known as Deer Creek — is a cautionary tale along the Banks-Lowman Highway in the Boise National Forest, in the Banks/Garden Valley area. The honest summary: the source pool is far too hot to soak, and the second pool below the highway has been gone since a 1996 mudslide. Most visitors look, and keep driving.
West Pass Hot Springs is a trio of bathtubs soaking beside West Pass Creek in the Sawtooth National Forest, near Clayton on the East Fork of the Salmon River. It’s a quirky, low-use soak — clear, lime-tinted, moderately sulfurous water in plain tubs, in a white-rock canyon that sees very few visitors.
Bowery Hot Springs is one of Idaho’s most unusual soaks: the “pool” is an old fiberglass spa set beside the East Fork of the Salmon River in the Sawtooth National Forest, near Clayton. There is no natural rock pool here — just an aging spa tub, strong sulfur water, big scenery, and (usually) nobody else around.
Hot Springs Landing — also called Magic Valley — is a reservoir-side soak in the Fairfield area, on BLM land where the spring’s source itself sits on private land. Most of the year there’s nothing to soak in: the pool site lies under the reservoir’s water until late fall, when dropping levels expose a wood-framed, tarp-lined pool a few yards downstream of the source, big enough for two to four soakers.
Willow Creek Hot Springs is a chain of algae- and silt-laden pools along Willow Creek and the Idaho Centennial Trail in the Sawtooth National Forest, just under a mile’s hike from a horse transfer camp northeast of Pine and Featherville, Idaho. It is also a comeback story: the area burned hard in a 2008 wildfire and the pools vanished for years — by June 2013 they were back, soaking a recovering, still-scorched landscape.
Lightfoot Hot Springs is a neglected, rarely visited soak about 20 miles from Featherville in the Sawtooth National Forest — and it starts with a trap for the unwary: the signed pools beside the road are a decoy. The real Lightfoot pools lie on the far side of the South Fork Boise River, reached by a dirt forest road, a pack bridge, and a short hike (or a river ford, not advised during spring runoff). What waits there, on the only documented visit, was underwhelming: stagnant, dirt-lined pools in a weed-infested area, badly in need of reconstruction.
Bridge Hot Springs — also known as Elk Flats — takes its name from its setting: user-built pools on both sides of the South Fork Boise River, beneath the bridge just before Featherville, Idaho. A popular campground within walking distance supplies most of the soakers, and late summer is both the busiest and the best time: the pools submerge during spring runoff and can run too cool early in the season, so the dependable soaks come once the river drops.
Round the Bend Hot Spring is exactly what the name says: the steaming cliff face just around the bend from Ninemeyer on the Middle Fork Boise River. It is also, honestly, not a soak in the usual sense — there is no pool here at all. Hot water streaked with bright algae flows down a cliff straight into the river, and the only way to enjoy it is to wade in during late summer, when the river drops to about 3 feet deep, and find the seam where hot meets cold.
Smith’s Cabin Hot Springs is a trio of undeveloped hot springs — numbered 1, 2, and 3 — strung along both sides of the Middle Fork Boise River near Troutdale Campground in the Atlanta corridor. All three are filed under “potential”: the first sits on the road side of the river, the second across the river slightly upstream, and the third about 100 yards further up, originating roughly 20 yards above the river. On documented visits, soaking pools were marginal or absent entirely — this is a stop for spring hunters already working the corridor, not a destination soak.
Sheep Creek Bridge Hot Springs is a small, shallow set of rock-walled, tarp-dammed pools a short hike from one of the points where the Middle Fork Road bridges the Boise River, in the Atlanta corridor. It comes with an honest caveat: this spring has declined. The well-built pool documented in early visits was later dismantled, and the most recent accounts describe small silt- and mud-filled pools running lukewarm — a shadow of the soak it once was, though the source still flows and the setting, with river views, remains.
Phifer Warm Spring — also known as Weatherby Mill — is one of the Atlanta area’s oddities: an 86°F warm spring with no soaking pool at all. Instead, the water is piped into a stand-up shower stall and an old bathtub, making this a rinse-off stop rather than a soak — best enjoyed on a hot summer day, when the lukewarm water is a feature instead of a bug.
