Challis Hot Springs

Rainy day excursion to Challis Hot Springs. My kind of place - quaint, old fashioned, calm and uncrowded! Family owned for 5 generations, we were lucky to finally make it so far north this year, as the hot spring will soon change hands. The owners want it preserved and open to all and to that end it may become a state facility in the fall. I imagine there will be changes, so I am glad we got to visit while it is still such a quaint lovely place.

 

Sol Duc Hot Spring

Now that was a treat. While visiting my son in Seattle he took us on an excursion... out to the Olympic Peninsula where he indulged his hot springs freak momma with a trip to Sol Duc Hot Springs in Olympic National Park. Yes, I'm a spoiled gal!

Thermopolis

Labor day weekend I got to cross an item off of my hot springs list; a trip to Thermopolis Wyoming. I've wanted to go there for quire some time, but it's a little out of day trip range. The spring is large and impressive, cascading over 'waterfalls' of mineral deposits into the Bighorn River. It was very reminiscent of Yellowstone. The spring is located in a state park, and the state operates a bath house with a large indoor tub and outdoor pool where you can soak for free... for 20 minutes (and they say nothing in life is free!). There are also two private resorts with pool and slides.It was super hot that weekend so we just did the short free soak, which was long enough to tarnish all my silver. We also walked the boardwalks and swinging bridge and drove up high in the park where the views are lovely.

Soaking...

After our trip to the jetty we headed north through Curlew National Grassland and stopped at Indian Springs near American Fork Idaho. It's a spot that's been on my hot springs hit list for quite a while. A tiny bit disappointing because it is really more of a warm spring than a hot spring, but who can resist a lovely pool surrounded by rainbow doors!

Some cool yard art uo near the springs

Springtime Soaking!

I took a day off from work to check out, and check off, another hot spring on my list. I've known about Meadow Hot Spring for a long time, but it's just far enough away that I had not made way down there to check it out. Plus, I'd heard it was popular on the weekends so I wanted to go a weekday. April, my hot springs partner in crime has spring break, so I took a day off and we went to explore. Being spring break it was not as quiet as we would have liked, but it was still lovely.

As the name reveals, Meadow Hot Spring is in the middle of a wide open meadow. Some might not find it as scenic as mountain springs, but the view of white capped mountains enveloped by beautiful blue skies were quite stunning. I really like the wide open spaces. Meadow has three pools of varying temperatures. We only soaked in the hottest, which also happens to be the deepest, something like 30 feet deep. It was a lovely spring day soaking temp. (Perhaps a little cool on a cold winter day?) Some brave souls from Montana were soaking in the middle pools, which I thought was the prettiest pool. A third pool was cooler, but would be a great summer swimming hole, which is probably why someone had built a deck. My understanding is these pools are on private property, so I did drop a few dollars in the donation tube, and would love to publically thank the owners (should they ever stumble across this post) for keeping this lovely spot accessible to the public!!

#22 for my Hot Spring List! How many more to go?!!! Lots!

Southern Soaking Adventures

Another recent adventure... A day off of work to go adventuring in the south lands with my hot springs birding buddy. First stop, the desert just north of Delta Utah for a trip to Baker Hot Spring, another place that has been on 'the list' for a while. A lovely little spring in the middle of nowhere. Someone at sometime built some concrete soaking tubs, April said that she read somewhere that it was the site of an old brothel. The tubs were fairly algae coated, but the water was nice, having a cold spring and hot spring in the same locations allows for mixing some nice temperature water

We had stopped at the BLM office at Little Sahara to ask directions to Baker, the fellows there advised us not to go, they said it was sketchy and trashy and some weird constitutionalist were living nearby. Off in the distance you can see the power plant near Delta, and other than that there is one crazy looking homestead just up the road. Post trip googling indicates the 'resident' is a bit of crazy fellow living on his grandparents land trying start some sort of mormon hot springs commune, but apparently he might be in jail at the moment. There was one fellow staying there in his homemade camper truck, he proved to be nice fellow from the midwest who retired to travel. He gave us his calling card with a photo of his unusual truck (he thought people would remember that better than him) that said "Vagabond, have truck will travel". I'm now on his email list, so I can updates on interesting places to travel. I always enjoy meeting interesting people while out on adventures!

The funny moment of the morning was when April suddenly blurted out "Llama". "Huh?" I responded, and she said "Llama" again and pointed. Sure enough there was beautiful llama walking around eating the tender vegetation that sprouted around this oasis in the desert. Rumor has it the llama was enlisted by local, presumably the crazy guy, to guard his goats from coyotes, and has since gone off on a desert walkabout. Ah... gotta love the strange things you find in the desert.

After our soak we travelled west on a beautiful paved road through the desert heading to what seemed like nothing, no ranches, nary a cow. We stopped briefly at Topaz Mountain (another place on my list) for a little bit of rock hounding, but left empty handed. We mused that it was interesting that road going nowhere was so nice, and took that road until the pavement just ended. From here we headed up over a mountains for another 23 miles passing numerous old and maybe somewhat active mine sites. I guess mining was the reason for the paved road to nowhere? After cresting the mountains we arrived at our destination, Fish Springs Wildlife refuge came into view. Water seemed low and not being the best season for birding the diversity was not spectacular, but we did see a lot of coots and think this will be a pretty great birding spot in the spring. Surprisingly we were not alone out in this remote location. There were runners on the road! The refuge was the turn around spot for the Pony Express 100 miler... so we got to cheer along some crazy ultrarunners before heading on the long drive home.

More Hot Springs...

Me and my hot springs love...

Spending time at Bear Lake puts us in shooting distance of another favorite hot spring... Maple Grove, a lovely little spring situated adjacent to the Bear River in Southern Idaho. It's little over an hour from my friends cabin, but a beautiful drive alongside Bear Lake, through Idaho farmland then up through the mountains over Strawberry Pass. Then a windy dirt road to a sweet spot on the Oneida Narrows. The resort is off grid and casual, a small bathhouse, campsites and some yurts to rent, there is a good size, perfect temperature, shaded soaking pool, as well as several smaller round pools of varying temperatures in the sunshine along the river. The setting can't be beat, and since we were there on Monday we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

It was delightfully peaceful and relaxing! The charmed life for sure!

Beaching...

Added another addition to my hot springs list... had nice soak in Bear Lake Hot Springs. (#21 woot!) Not the most exciting of springs, sulfury, bright blue painted pools, kind of 50's style surrounded by chain link fence... but nice temperature water and a nice view of Bear Lake and the surrounding mountains from the pools... and the spoiling thing... getting to have a nice soak after a nice day on the beach.

Yes, beach. In Utah. An actual natural lake, with sandy beach and water as amazingly beautiful blue as the Caribbean. After a day of swimming, some stand up paddle boarding, sand sculpting, and then the nice hot springs soak, I really regretted that I didn't discover Bear Lake until after my kids left the nest. What a great place for summer weekend away!

Northern Adventures I

Sarah and I had a weekend adventure up north to SE Idaho for a memorial for our dear friend Mabel. A sad reason for a road trip, but we decided to turn it into a fun weekend of camping and exploring new places. I'm always happy to have an excuse to visit Idaho as it is an beautiful state. Many years ago, back in the '80's I think, I read a book about a guy who walked across America. In his book he described Idaho as "America's best kept secret". After moving out west and discovering Idaho for myself, I have to agree. Even the farmland of south east Idaho is beautiful!

We spent a little time walking around Idaho Falls, where somehow I forgot to take pictures of the falls, but had a lot of fun taking pictures of the cool park benches we found around town. I love it when utilitarin items are turned into works of art! Anyone who know's me knows that I'm a hot springs freak, and like to try out new ones any chance I get. Idaho has a lot of hot springs, so I decided I should add a new one to my list. A google search turned up several in the vicinity of where I wanted to camp, and Green Canyon Hots Spring, which is located kind of in the middle of nowhere in between Rexburg, ID and Driggs, ID was the one I picked, mostly for it middle of nowhere location. As hot springs places often are this one was old and run down, but in a beautiful little canyon. Maybe I'm weird but I kind of prefer the funky, old places to opulent, fancy resort hot springs. There was a small outdoor pool, a huge indoor pool, a kinds funky shower house, and a concession where they were also selling tomatoes from their geothermal greenhouse. Even though it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere apparently people drive the 30ish miles from Rexburg and Driggs to take swim lessons and water aerobics classes there. We were given a lovely spot next to stream to camp so after our nice relaxing soak we were lulled to sleep by the gurgling stream.

.