Big Spring

Joann left us a bag of travel booklets and magazines related to Idaho and the northwest. In the Idaho book, I found a reference to Big Spring, a source of water for Henry’s Fork of the Snake River. Since it isn’t far from Lionshead RV Resort, which is located just a few miles from the Idaho state line, we chose to visit it yesterday.

We didn’t know what to expect, except the write-up mentioned that the spring provides millions of gallons of water to the river every day, and there is a half-mile trail that is not difficult. We found the turn-off from US 20 with no trouble and drove to where the GPS took us into a campground. Just before turning into the campground, we noticed a parking lot next to what we thought was a pool. That turned out to be the Big Spring! The water doesn’t gush out, but bubbles from the bottom of the pool and along it’s edges. It’s at a fairly constant 52 degrees year round. The water is crystal clear, and the area is beautiful!

Dortha, Mark, Andrew, Lauren and Zachary standing in front of the spring:

A little girl sitting on the platform at the edge of the spring, with the bridge in the background:

Seagulls! Are they lost?

The half-mile trail turned out to be about a quarter of a mile one way, leading to a little cabin which was built by John Sack, complete with a little water wheel that he built to provide electricity. He was a woodworker, and built not only the cabin, but all of the furniture. The house is open to the public, so we walked the little path and went through the cabin.

Jim caught me coming back on the trail:

This was the view down river from the bridge over the spring:

All that walking made us hungry, so we went back to West Yellowstone and stopped at Gusher’s Pizza for lunch:

Later on in the afternoon, we took a drive on a road near the rv park, which leads to Hebgen Lake’s south shore. The road starts out as a 2-lane blacktop, but eventually turns into:

And, then, that’s all there is! Time to turn around:

It was a fun day!