Cool spot. Over a little bridge across the Payette River across the highway. A small campground with amazing hot springs a few yards away. Very crowded nowadays.
Not very remarkable campground, except for the really excellent hot springs pouring out of the side of the creek 1/4 mile away. Campground hosts were annoying busybodies.
Nice pullover off Highway 75 east of Stanley. Park and walk down to a little 2 person pool by the Salmon River. No shade, so you'll need a sun-blocking plan in the middle of the day.
Funny little place. It is mandated to be free by some old treaty or contract. There is an inside pool and an outside pool, and you can go to one or the other, and supposedly you have a 20 minute limit, but nobody was checking. I chose the outside pool,and it was really pleasant. Nice shade structure. It's very close to Tepee, so I didn't dry or change, I just soaked for a while, thanked to nice lady and flip-flopped 60 yards back to Tepee.
Co-owned with Banbury Hot Springs. Banbury has better camping, Miracle better pools, so here's how it all shakes out: Banbury: tent sites: $10 | campground: park on the grass next to your picnic table in a pretty spot | soaking: big concrete rectangle pool (see their Spot entry) Miracle: must pay for hookups: $20 | campground: dusty and shabby | soaking: wonderful set of modern, interesting pools - a really hot one under the sun deck I call the Grotto :), a bigger cooler pool, then a long, skinny, segmented parallel pool that is a hot zone, a cold zone, and a slighter hotter zone. Really nice layout!
Recently re-opened, run by an earnest young couple for whom I wish nothing but the best. You can get a rooms with your own tub, or for cheaper a regular room like mine, which is still quite nice, with a spacious kitchenette. With one of these rooms you can use the private tubs all evening. There are four more or less identical private tubs to choose from. They are open to the public until 3pm after that they are solely for the use of us lucky lodgers. :) You fill your tub from empty each time, so hygiene is pretty good, I think.
How have I not known about this place?! It was nearly perfect in every way for what I like to do on the road. Common Room next to the office with satellite tv. The pool is awesome. Maybe 100' across, 2-4' deep mostly, with incredibly, life-threateningly hot water comong in from the southeast end, and cooling jets shooting out from the south, so you simply ewade in and find your spot!
The springs at Grover gurgle out of the hillside into a beautiful U-shaped alpine meadow. So it should be a groovy, enchanted place, but sadly it is managed by the State Parks system, who do their darnedest to make it prosaic and institutional. The pools are a couple of rectangular concrete tubs - a big one with lukewarm water, and a shallow (3 feet) one, maybe 40x20 which they keep at a pleasantly toasty 104°. You can look over the fence on the uphill side and see the water burble out of the ground and down a sluice to you. There are showers and cubbyholes to store your stuff. There is a campground, which I have never used since it's CA State Parks expensive and there is boondocking three miles down the road.
Really nice hot pools in a wide, beautiful valley. Camping area is the parking lot. Paths and pools are full of uneven rocks so it's difficult to walk on the former and you're always banging your shins in the latter, but the water is really nice. Has a smoking pool - a pool where you may smoke ciggies while you soak! Disgusting, but kinda cool!
Tub 1 seems to always be booked. Tubs 2 and 3 are the lower priced tubs most likely to be open. I did T2 because it looked cozier in the picture. I like it better I think, but in T3 you can kick back and look at the hills which is cool.
The lodge itself is not fancy, just a standard-issue two story motel with paper-thin walls. But it's got a restaurant and a bar and all those lovely soaking pools, so it's fancy to me! The motel is a rectangle enclosing the pool area - 6-7 pools, a couple very hot, a big pool where the kids hang out, and a bar area over in the corner. Cool Rat Pack-y kind of place.
Combo hot pool and roadside bar! One pool, pretty gardens, bird feeders, very cozy. But oddly, there is no shower, there is an un-plumbed changing room and there are only porta-potties.
There is one big pool with a little waterfall, then up the hill are some bathtubs for your own private soak overlooking the wide valley. Really cool setup. Camping area is 200 yards down the hill. The pools are spectacular and the actual camping area is pleasant but rest of the property is extremely derelict. Walking up the crappy trail to the bathtubs in flip flops is hard for a 70-year old. It's pretty dangerous coming back down in wet flip-flops! Electric hookups and tent/van sleeping seem to be the same price.
Six pools. The big rectangular one, around to the right in the grotto, is the very hottest - 112°. They get progressively cooler moving left. Next is the biggest and ranges from 110° to 103° according to the sign. Beautiful setting at the opening of a little canyon with the busy highway and railroad tracks right above..
The hot springs is a completely separate business from the campground. $7 for seniors off season, $1 to re-enter - cheapskates. After the fine example of Lava Hot Springs, which was excellent in every way, this place is disappointing. The single soaking pool is quite nice however - slightly sulphur-y water in a row of hot jets on the side.
This a soaking wonderland! There are at least 15 different pools ranging from lukewarm to very hot, arranged on many levels on the hillside along the San Juan River. There are pools at river's edge, so you can hop from very hot to very cold water. I was first here in 1995, and the place has gotten way more developed and expensive since then.
Camping is expensive and the pools are extra, so not my thing. However just the pools is $5 for an old person, which IS my thing. There are: - three small pools ranging from very hot to way too hot. - one unheated pool for them kiddies - the biggest pool varies in temperature, see below. The big pool has three little waterfalls set up. The middle one is very hot, the left medium and the right cold. The left is always crowded, the right empty, and the middle always has an old dude or two planted under it.
An awesome find! Beautiful campsite right on a bend of the Salmon River.
closed for the season, but looked cool. Indoor pool and a couple of outdoor tubs. And a really pleasant looking campground at the northeast corner of Bear Lake. I'll bet it's hoppin' in the summer.
locals pool, basketball hoops in the water, stuff like that. -- -- -- -- Camping here this time. Offseacon it's $15=$5+$10