Camping Near Hot Springs in Idaho: Soak-and-Sleep Picks

The first thing to understand about Idaho's hot springs is that most of them are not amenities. They are geothermal expressions of a long, slow argument between the Idaho Batholith and the water that moves through its fractures — meteoric water that drops as snow on the Sawtooths, descends a mile or two into the crust, warms against granite, and surfaces, decades later, in a creek bed. The soaking pools you see photographed on Instagram are, almost without exception, built annually by volunteers out of river cobble, and washed out again every spring by snowmelt. That is a feature, not a bug.

I'll say this up front: I am an East Coast essayist by trade, and I came to Idaho's thermal country first as a reader (John McPhee's Basin and Range, mostly) and then on repeated October trips, because October is when the campgrounds along the South Fork Payette finally quiet down. If you want the romantic version of hot springs camping — steam rising off a river bend, nobody within fifty feet of you — go in the shoulder seasons. In July you will be sharing a four-foot pool with a bachelorette party from Boise.

A short, necessary note on whose land this is

The hot springs country of central Idaho sits on ceded and unceded lands of the Nimíipuu (Nez Perce), the Shoshone-Bannock, and the Northern Shoshone and Bannock bands who ranged through the Salmon and Payette drainages. The springs themselves were well known and used long before the first prospectors crossed Dollar Creek in the 1860s. A number of what are now Forest Service campgrounds along US-12 and Highway 21 were built in the CCC era (1930s) and expanded during the mid-century parks and forests build-out; the Sawtooth National Recreation Area wasn't established until 1972. Worth knowing, before you drive in.

Most of the sites below are in Boise National Forest, Payette National Forest, Clearwater National Forest, or the Sawtooth NRA. The ranger-district distinctions matter if you call ahead about road conditions, which you should. For reservations and current status, I'd start at Recreation.gov and the USFS recreation portal rather than the aggregator sites, which are often months out of date.

The Lowman corridor: the easiest soak-and-sleep in Idaho

If you've never done hot springs camping before, start on Highway 21 between Lowman and Stanley. This is the stretch most people mean when they talk about Idaho hot springs, and the campground-to-pool density is as high as anywhere in the Lower 48.

Kirkham Campground (Boise NF, four miles east of Lowman on Highway 21) is the obvious anchor. Kirkham Hot Springs is a short walk from the sites — a terraced set of pools built into the river bank, with a small waterfall of hot water spilling into the South Fork Payette. The campground is small (sixteen or so sites, as I remember) and the day-use lot fills by mid-morning on summer weekends. Campers get the dawn and dusk soaks to themselves, which is the entire point. People call this a hidden gem; it is not hidden, it is on a state highway with a brown sign.

Bonneville Campground, about nineteen miles east of Lowman, is quieter. The hot springs here require a short walk across a footbridge and down to the river — one developed concrete tub (fed by hot pipe) and a cluster of river-rock pools downstream. The water temperature in the tub can be aggressive; the river pools are more forgiving, and you can scoot a cobble aside to let more cold water in. Bonneville is also a reasonable base for day hikes into the surrounding Boise NF; the trailheads along the highway are not crowded on weekdays.

Pine Flats Campground (also Boise NF, west of Lowman) rounds out the trio. The hot springs here are a half-mile walk down a steep user trail that leaves from the campground loop; the waterfall-fed pool at the bottom is one of the prettier soaks in the state, when the river isn't high. Which brings up the central caveat of hot springs camping in Idaho: in May and early June, most of these riverside pools are either submerged or unsafe to approach. Plan accordingly.

Stanley and the Sawtooth NRA

Keep driving east on 21 and you climb over Banner Summit into the Stanley Basin, which is — and I say this having spent a career in the southern Appalachians — one of the most dramatic mountain basins I've ever camped in. The the Sawtooths rise straight out of the sagebrush like a studio backdrop.

The soaking options cluster along the Salmon River northeast of Stanley on Highway 75. Sunbeam Hot Springs is the big one — a hot creek that cascades into the Salmon, with pools built where the two meet. There's a historic bathhouse ruin on the uphill side (early twentieth century; worth reading the interpretive sign). The nearest campground is Mormon Bend, a Sawtooth NRA site about a mile upstream, with pleasant cottonwood-shaded sites along the Salmon. Basin Creek Campground is a bit farther and smaller.

Downstream a few miles, the famous Boat Box Hot Springs is exactly what it sounds like: a metal cattle-trough-looking tub bolted to the bank, fed by a pipe from a hot source, with a cold-water hose you move in and out to regulate temperature. It fits two people, maybe three if everyone is friendly. There is no camping at Boat Box; use Mormon Bend or Salmon River Campground and walk or drive the short distance. Go at sunrise.

If you're building a trip itinerary, the Idaho state parks site is useful for the non-federal pieces (though note that most of the hot springs themselves are on Forest Service land, not state park land — a distinction tourists routinely muddle).

The Lochsa corridor: the long drive that's worth it

US-12 along the Lochsa River is the Lewis and Clark route in reverse, roughly, and it's one of the great underrated drives in the American West. It's also home to two of the state's best wild soaks.

Jerry Johnson Hot Springs is a mile walk in from the Warm Springs Pack Bridge trailhead (Clearwater NF, about 150 miles west of Missoula and feels like it). Three sets of pools: a meadow set, a waterfall set, and a lower creekside set. No camping at the springs themselves — this is a day-use area, and the Forest Service is firm about that — but Wendover Campground and Whitehouse Campground, a few miles east on US-12, are both pleasant Lochsa-side options. Powell Campground, farther east near the Lolo Pass area, is a larger choice if the small ones are full.

Weir Creek Hot Springs, a few miles west of Jerry Johnson, is a shorter and sketchier walk to a smaller pool, usually less crowded for the simple reason that the trail is unmarked and the parking is a shoulder pullout. I will not tell you exactly where it is because the people who find it should find it, but AllTrails users have, inevitably, posted a track; AllTrails Idaho is where I'd look if you want the GPS. Pack out your trash. Pack out other people's trash, if you can bear to.

McCall and the Payette: Burgdorf, Trail Creek, Gold Fork

The country north of McCall is a different kind of hot springs landscape — more alpine, more remote, and in the case of Burgdorf, more historical. Burgdorf Hot Springs is a private resort built around an 1865 mining camp bathhouse, roughly thirty miles up a dirt road from McCall. The soaking is in a large sand-bottomed pool fed by the spring. There's no camping at Burgdorf per se (they rent rustic cabins), but dispersed camping in the surrounding Payette National Forest is available, with the usual Leave No Trace caveats.

Trail Creek Hot Springs, between Cascade and McCall off Highway 55, is a small roadside soak — two or three rock pools below the highway, a scramble down. No camping at the springs; the nearest Forest Service sites are around Cascade Reservoir. Gold Fork Hot Springs, east of Donnelly, is developed and privately run (admission fee, closed certain weekdays — call ahead) and clean enough that it's a good choice if you've been camping for four days and want to sit in genuinely clear hot water for an hour. There is no shame in this.

Gotchas, in no particular order

• Spring runoff. Many riverside pools are underwater or washed away from roughly May into early July, depending on snowpack. The ones built on river banks have to be rebuilt every year.
• Glass is banned at essentially all developed hot springs. It's also a bad idea at the undeveloped ones.
• Naegleria fowleri — the brain-eating amoeba — has been documented in a few Idaho thermal pools over the years. Don't dunk your head. Don't inhale the water through your nose.
• Reservation timing. Kirkham, Bonneville, and the Sawtooth NRA campgrounds book out early for summer weekends. Shoulder season is often first-come, first-served; check Recreation.gov before you go.
• Clothing norms vary. Developed campground-adjacent springs: swimsuits expected. Backcountry pools after dark: variable. Use your judgment and don't be weird about anyone else's.
• Road conditions. The access roads to Burgdorf and several dispersed areas are rough dirt; the road to Trail Creek is paved but icy well into spring. Highway 21 over Banner Summit can close in winter storms, sometimes for days.
• Fire restrictions. Central Idaho has had hard fire years recently; check the ranger-district page for current rules before you plan to cook over wood. A canister stove is the safer bet most summers.

What to bring that you might not think of

I won't lecture about gear — there's a full kit list elsewhere on this site — but a few hot-springs-specific items are worth flagging. A pair of cheap closed-toe water shoes (the pool bottoms are sharp cobble and sometimes broken glass despite the signs). A dark-colored quick-dry towel. A dry bag for wet suits so your sleeping bag doesn't end up damp. A headlamp with a red setting for the dawn soak. And a four-season or at least shoulder-ready tent, because Stanley Basin can drop below freezing in September and I have watched more than one summer-weight tent fail in a surprise snow.

If you want to pair the soaks with trail time, the Sawtooths and the Boise NF offer some of the best hiking in the state; the Sawtooth Lake trail out of Iron Creek, the Fourth of July Lake trail, and anything into the Lick Creek drainage above McCall are all defensible day hikes from a hot springs base. Our trails index has more detail. For broader park and forest planning across the state, start at the parks overview.

Honest take

If I had three days and wanted a representative Idaho hot springs camping trip, I would fly into Boise in late September, drive Highway 21 to Kirkham for night one, push through to Mormon Bend near Stanley for night two with a dawn soak at Boat Box, and then double back to Bonneville for night three. That's a lot of driving but the drive itself is the trip — the geolgoical story written along 21 is as interesting as anything you'll see out a car window in the West (the exposed granite of the Idaho Batholith, the Stanley Basin's glacial sculpting. The soaks are the punctuation.

Go in shoulder season. Rebuild the rock pool you sat in. Pack out everything. And if you find Weir Creek on your own, don't post the pin.