Some Idaho hot springs are at their best in summer, when high country trails are clear, rivers run at soakable levels, and long evenings stretch the day. This collection gathers the springs tagged for summer visits, from roadside pools to backcountry soaks reached on foot. Summer is also the busiest season at the popular spots, so start early, pack more water than you think you need, and check fire and road conditions before you go.
In the unincorporated community of Paradise, near Featherville in Elmore County, Trinity Hot Springs is a private membership club built around one large outdoor pool on Grouse Creek, just off the South Fork Boise River. The pool is fed directly by the spring and kept untreated and chemical free, and the water behind it carries…
Trail Flat Hot Springs is a small, undeveloped soak at the edge of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, at Trail Flat camp in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. It is the first hot spring on the river below the Boundary Creek launch, and for a lot of Middle Fork trips…
Sheepeater Hot Springs is a cluster of undeveloped soaking pools on a high terrace above the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, at river mile 13 in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. It is the second hot spring on the river below the Boundary Creek launch, and one of the most reliable:…
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…
Hospital Bar Hot Springs is a small, undeveloped soak at the edge of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, at river mile 52.1 in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. There is no road and no trail in: the spring sits at the upper end of the Hospital Bar camp, on the…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.
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.
Mountain Village Resort’s hot springs in Stanley, Idaho, have grown well beyond the single pool the old listings describe: today there are three soaking tubs along Valley Creek — the long-standing Osprey Hot Spring plus two newer private tubs, Sandhill Crane and Bluebird — all with astounding views of the Sawtooth Mountains, and all soaked by reservation only.
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.
Frenchman’s Bend Hot Springs is a popular set of wide, shallow pools on both sides of a creek in the Sawtooth National Forest, in the Ketchum/Smoky Mountains area. The water is clear, the setting is classic Wood River country — and the rules matter here: this spring is day-use only, with a posted nighttime closure in effect, and no camping at the springs.
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.
