Sharkey Hot Springs

We have been wanting to visit the Sharkey Hot Springs for a long time and have never gotten around to it. Since yesterday was Dave's day off, we decided to make the trip. It's kinda far--about 65 miles from here, only about 10 miles southeast of Salmon, ID, but we had all day and it's pretty country, so we headed out. On the way, we followed the Lewis and Clark trail for a while. We got to the top of Lemhi Pass, which is where the headwaters of the Missour River are (it's pretty funny to see this little tiny trickle coming out of the mountain-side and think of what it becomes) and also some monuments to Lewis and Clark.

This monument, courtesy of the Idaho Land Surveyors (this is for you, Scott and Pompa) is a replica of one of the types of peace medals that the Corps of Discovery gave to the various tribes they met along the way.

If you look at a Lewis and Clark commemorative nickel, you might find that it looks the same (there were three different nickels).

After a couple of wrong turns, we made it to the hot springs. It was definitely smaller than we thought it would be, and much more crowded than we were hoping on a Monday, but we had a great time.

Here's the little site (with changing rooms off to the side).

I thought the title of this info plaque was really funny.

One of the pools. They aren't very big at all, but the water was warm and we had fun. We were excited to see how Jed would like it, and he didn't disappoint. He loved having tons of room to splash around in and kick his legs all over. It was really great. The water was pretty hot so he spent a lot of time sitting on the side, his cheeks as red as little tomatoes, but he had a great time.

On the way home we stopped at this cool little spring to refill our Nalgenes. Such delicious water!