Saratoga Hot Springs Utah

Just clarifying this is still local, as there is a much more famous location with the same name in New York. :)

I’ve always been fascinated by hot springs, I think this stems from growing up and visiting Yellowstone National Park every year with my family. Due to that love I started looking locally. Some of my family moved to Saratoga Springs a few years ago. They have a great pool, with a set of 3 increasingly warmer hot tubs that are fed by a natural hot spring. So this got me curious if there were other springs nearby. I found one years ago, but after several attempts I was unable to locate it, that is until today.

We had a small family gathering, so I thought I would show up a little early and go tromping through the woods hunting down a hot spring.

The trailhead starts near the shores of Utah Lake and already offers a rather pretty view.

It is paved about halfway down, then turns into a dirt trail.

Woodpecker.

Getting into thicker swampland here.

And here it is.

You can see it bubbling up from the bottom, but it appears a spring above also feeds it.

These 2 shots you can see that it is actually pretty close to the shores of Utah Lake.

Here is the runoff stream. Its got a pretty good output! I wonder how many GPH that is.

Another angle. I wasn’t prepared to take a dip today, but I did stick my hand in to see how warm it is and it feels pretty comfortable. I might have to return so I can take a nice soak.

Pretty shot of the mountains.

Here is a smaller spring above, which does not look inviting at all. Ew.

Snowcapped mountains.

Its a very short trail at about a quarter mile, but considering what the forecast was today I didn’t even think I would get a hike in so I am happy with it. I will have to return when I have some more time to explore, and of course so that I can hop in for a minute. :)

So, now we have seen a hot spring with a little bit of man hands affecting it. Now lets talk about one with a very strong presence of mans hand.

Just a little ways south is the community my relatives live in we stopped by the park to meet the family and I took the opportunity to get some images of the hot spring turned pool I talked about in the beginning of this post.

Here is the run off coming out of it. The pool is behind that fence. (I really didn’t want to be a creeper and take any close up pictures of the pool with people swimming in it… maybe I am weird but that just seemed… creepy.) If you look really closely you can see the hot tub tiers. The hot spring, which I believe is warmer than the other one feeds the top one directly which is the warmest, then the next, the next and then ultimately the pool, and then runs out here.

Now you might be asking yourself why would I want to climb into a mud pit of a hot spring when there is this nice pool I could climb into. Well, when they first moved in it was pure hot spring water. I guess at some point the state said even though the water circulates itself fairly well, that they need to chlorinate. Something about the natural minerals and chlorine doesn’t feel too great.

And here is where it meanders down towards Utah Lake. I don’t know if this was the original path with some landscaping added, or if they created a new path for it to go.

The marina below.

Landscaped runoff stream. It has a pretty good output too.

Wait, does the stream end?

It does. They must have added an underground pipe.

If I remember right the hot tubs have the same color.

I thought I had caught the steam coming off, but I guess I didn’t. It is still rather warm even this far down.

So the landscaped one is nice, it looks cleaner, but I don't know. I guess I prefer to just leave nature alone and let it do it’s thing. I’ve said it before, I know I couldn’t enjoy things such as this without us interfering with nature, such as roads. I would never get around to see nearly any of the natural wonders I constantly enjoy without our road system. However I also feel there are some things that we should just leave natural.

I was going to link to some of the other local springs we’ve visited but it would appear I haven't posted anything about those yet. So I think I will write a one long post to cover them, so look forward to that. :)