In a Van down by the Creek

The second weekend of September, Josh and I went on another hot springs trip. This time, we went camping in our van overnight. We left on Saturday afternoon, and headed to Horse Creek Hot Springs--one of our favorites! It took over 3 hours to get there. We approached it from the Idaho side (it's right on the border between Idaho and Montana): from Salmon, you go to North Fork and turn down the river road, then turn off at Spring Creek and go 20+ miles on super bumpy and rough roads to reach it. We stopped at Blue Nose Lookout on the way, so Josh could look around (even though he's been to this one before). He just loves going to Lookout towers! 

When we got to Horse Creek, the dispersed camping area surrounding the hot springs was busy, so we picked a spot to park the van overnight at a designated campground down the road that was more isolated and further from the springs. We were the only ones at that campground. People were soaking in the hot springs all evening and night, so we waited to soak until Sunday morning. Instead, we read (Josh finished another book!) and relaxed and made dinner at our campsite. 

On Sunday morning, we finally soaked in the hot springs. Thankfully, we had it to ourselves for quite a while. There had been a large group that had stayed late in it the night before, and they'd left a lot of garbage behind, which ticked me off. However, having the place to ourselves and soaking in the relaxing natural springs was really lovely and we enjoyed the early morning soak. We soaked in the deeper pool in the building first, and then moved to the more shallow pools outside. We cleaned up the hot springs, packed up, and drove back home from the Montana side on Sunday afternoon. The roads were better (only 15 miles of gravel road and the rest were paved) so the return trip didn't take near as long. We'd been to Horse Creek Hot Springs twice before, and both times we went to it in the middle of the week and it was a LOT less busy. This was the first time we went to it on the weekend, and it was WAY more busy and crowded. We decided that when we go to it again in the future, we'll stick to going to it mid-week.