The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: November fifteenth, getting into Idaho's hot springs.

There's something undefinable about the healing power of hot water, especially when it comes bubbling out of the ground. Hot springs have been healing places longer than there's been history to record them. For millennia before modern medicine dissuaded them of the notion hot mineral water could cure their ills, people have made pilgrimages to thermal springs to sit and soak away their cares.

Now, hot springs may not be your first image of Idaho, but the Gem State is certainly well endowed. The National Geophysical Data Center lists coordinates for more than 365 Idaho hot springs, enough to keep a soak seeker busy every day of the year.

Some of these springs are private, jealously guarded secrets, while others are operated as down home spas, with big signs on the highway. Hot spring operators tout the virtues of their water the way Napa Valley vintners do their wine. They use terms like volcanic, thirst quenching, sweet, naturally distilled, energizing, alkalizing, non-chlorinated, low in surface tension and high in natural fluorides.

Idaho also has heaps of less hyped hot springs still pretty much as nature made them. Finding them takes only a map and willingness to hike into some numbingly beautiful places. Near Pine Flats, for example, a geothermal waterfall spills into a quiet gladed pool. A soak there is like being a participant in an impressionist painting, but one with sound, smell and that delicious warm water. While not perhaps perfect bliss, it's certainly close enough for comfort.

There's a quest for Idaho's hot springs in this issue of the magazine National Geographic Traveler, a supporter of our program. You can register for a free sample copy at our homepage.

FMI For information about Idaho's springs, visit the Idaho Travel Council 800-842-5858 or www.visitid.org

Sites for other hot springs resources:

National Geophysical Data Center lists locations for all known US springs - www.ngdc.noaa.gov:80/cgi-bin/seg/m2h?seg/springs.men

Two other sites: www.soak.net and www.srv.net/~hockey/hotsprings provide more detailed discriptions.

But the closer you get to the source the better. That's why the best resource is often talking to local soakers.

 

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