Every Idaho soak has a past, and some are only a past. This collection gathers the listings where history leads: the grand resorts of Idaho’s first hot springs era, springs that closed generations ago and survive in photographs and memory, and working soaks whose stories go back more than a century. Where a spring is closed, its listing says so plainly and tells the history instead.
Challis Hot Springs is a developed, state-run soak on the Salmon River, about 8 miles east of Challis: two outdoor pools with natural gravel and river-rock bottoms, a riverside campground, and a soaking history that runs back to 1880. If the name is new to you, the place is not. For most of its life…
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…
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…
Deep in the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest east of Elk City, Red River Hot Springs is a developed, year-round resort built around a set of natural hot springs: a large outdoor swimming pool, three soaking tubs, and a lodge where some rooms let you soak in private without leaving your bathroom. The resort runs on…
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…
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.
Why are Idaho’s hot springs hot? A plain-language Idaho geothermal history: the Yellowstone hotspot track, the Idaho Batholith and Basin and Range faulting behind the state’s 340 hot springs.
