Hey friends, welcome back to Grand Adventure! I'm your host Marc Guido, and we are in the
winter wonderland of Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. We're up here to ski a bit at Pebble Creek,
do some winter camping, and do some soaking in those wonderful mineral hot pools, so stay tuned!
Now we've been here before but we've only been here in summer, never in winter,
and if you haven't seen our previous episode from Lava Hot Springs I'll put a link right
here on the screen so you can go back and check it out. But when we stay up here we normally stay
at our friends Cameron and Annie's campground, Lava Campground just outside of town. However,
at this time of year we are in the KOA Lava Hot Springs West campground as that's the only game
in town in winter. Even so, they have the water and the sewer shut off at each of their sites,
so we have electric only at this time of year. They have you fill up at one site where they keep
the water on where we arrived, and last night filled our water tank. We'll dump there when we
leave, but other than that we're basically on electric only. It's snowing to beat the band!
We barely made it ahead of the storm last night, and we're going to get out skiing at Pebble Creek
tomorrow, but first let's go explore the town of Lava Hot Springs.
With a population only a mere 407, Lava Hot Springs sits southeast of Pocatello at an elevation of 5,000 feet,
in the far southeastern corner of Idaho. Situated along the banks of the Portneuf River along routes
of both the Oregon and California trails followed by early western settlers, this tiny city has
become a popular resort destination thanks to both its numerous hot springs year round,
and a playful tubing run on the Portneuf right through town during the summer months.
Lava Hot Springs were historically used by local Bannock and Shoshone Native Americans. In 1883
John and Salina Hall moved from England to Oxford, Idaho. In 1890 they submitted a homesteading file
for 180 acres on the Portneuf River at what would become Lava Hot Springs. The hot mineral water
emerges from the ground geothermically heated to a temperature of 113 degrees,
at a flow of over 2,000 gallons per minute. The mineral content of the water includes manganese,
sodium, iron, calcium bicarbonate, potassium, magnesium, iron, zinc and fluoride. Although
there were many privately owned hot mineral pools in town, the most popular system of pools is owned
by the State of Idaho and operated by the Lava Hot Springs Foundation. Admission presently costs from
$6 to $10, and both towels and bathing suits are available to rent for $1.50 plus deposit.
The other reason we traveled to southeast Idaho for the weekend was to ski at Pebble Creek.
After nearly a foot of new snow leading to one of the best days of the season,
this is the powder day crowd. Pebble Creek is a diamond in the rough. About 30 minutes
from Lava Hot Springs and just south of Pocatello, Pebble Creek's lifts rise for a
2,200-foot vertical drop in the Portneuf Range of the Caribou National Forest.
The ski area first opened in 1949 as Skyline with two rope tows and a warming hut. Today
Pebble Creek has three chairlifts -- all fixed grip Yan triples -- serving 1,100 acres of skiable
terrain, with extensive sidecountry available at both the north and south ends of the resort.
Relatively unheard of outside of the Pocatello area, Pebble Creek is a real sleeper. All-day
lift tickets max out at a paltry $52. Save for the beginner lift at the base, there are
no flats here. Pebble is relentlessly steep from top to bottom. The Portneuf Range sits in a bit
of a snow shadow, but when the snow is good as it is right now, Pebble offers a lift-served skiing
experience like none other with untracked lines still available days after a storm.
I'm telling you, those first three runs were the best runs of my season so far.
There is great snow, and in a place like Pebble Creek
there is zero competition for fresh lines. We're going to be skiing untracked all day!
Now here we are on our final day in Lava Hot Springs and we've got some issues to contend with.
We got up this morning and we've got no water. It went down to about 10 degrees overnight
and we kept the basement at about 55 to 60 degrees all night overnight,
so I'm doubting I've got any frozen water lines. I'm guessing it's the tank that froze;
however, it was only about two-thirds full so it has plenty of room to expand,
and fingers crossed once this thaws out I'm hoping that everything's going to be just fine.
We also have... before we head out of here we have to do some chipping away at some ice,
because one of our rear stabilizers is encased in a frozen puddle. The joys of winter camping.
When at Pebble Creek you must have the fries, hand cut on site from local potatoes, never frozen.
And this homemade cinnamon roll fresh out of the oven could feed a family of four for only $3.50.
So you hear that? That was our water pump, and we're back!
It got up to about 27 degrees which was enough to thaw out the pump, so that turned out to be
all the problem. We're very, very grateful we didn't crack any pex or anything like that.
We also managed to use a claw hammer to free our stabilizer from its icy tomb,
so we're ready to hit the road back to Salt Lake.
So we truly hope that you've enjoyed coming to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho with us! If you liked this
episode please be sure to give us a big "thumbs up" down below, and while you're down below that's
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