Beers are the best way to learn about secret outdoor spots. It’s the currency for scarce outdoor info, we share a few brews and spill our guts. I learned about Box Canyon State Park this way.
It was a late summer evening in Boise and my colleague and I were at the Lost Grove Brewery, chatting about digital marketing recent excursions. Through the mess of our conversation he told me about a place in Southern Idaho where the water looks tropical.
He showed me photos and I was shocked by the two descending pools of soft, mint-colored water. I went home that night and started obsessively researching.
Box Canyon State Park is located in Southwestern Idaho, about a two hour drive from Boise.
It’s a naturally occurring spring, the 11th largest in the United States and around 180,000 gallons of water per minute is pumped out of the ground by Mother Nature.
I was sold. The next weekend we were going.
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How Far Is Box Canyon State Park From Boise
It’s all freeway from Boise until the last stretch of road to Box Canyon State Park. Once you take the freeway exit the, you drive old country roads through established agricultural lands.
You’ll drive past families, sitting in their front yards in Cabela’s lawn chairs, having barbecues and killing racks of beer. It’s old Idaho, the Idaho I grew up in. It’s full of rugged, skin creased people who often chose to stay living their simple lives, the life I sometimes envy. This Idaho is slowing sterilizing, and I’m thankful for every day I get to interact with it.
On our way to Box Canyon State Park we stopped at Malad Gorge State Park and and Miracle Hot Springs. I would totally suggest bundling these three together in one trip. They’re all next to each other and are the perfect companions for a weekend trip.
On the map we we’re getting close to the Box Canyon State Park trailhead. It was still farmland and I had a small panic attack that I had fucked up our directions.
There was no sign, just a gravel parking lot big enough for ten cars. We read the trailhead map to confirm we were in the right place and started down the gravel path. Walking down the path I found myself thinking what an odd location for a state park that is a protected nature preserve. On both sides of the trail, only about 40 feet away at some points, were fields of corn and parked ag equipment.
Dusk arrived swiftly, so we half jogged down the trail. As the sun set the cliffs suddenly emerged from behind the horizon.
It was breathtaking.
We hung till the sun winked at us for the last time until tomorrow, and then went back to the car to go to Miracle Hot Springs for beers, sandwich and soothing waters. We’d ascend to the teal pools tomorrow.
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Box Canyon State Park: Trail To The Lagoons
We woke up to the car windows frosted and the ranger pulling out of the parking lot. I was really surprised a ranger was active here and admired her early morning rounds. We put our sleeping bags in our stuff sacks, packed my backpack for the day and made our way back down the trail to the spring.
There’s a manmade lookout over the lagoons. We took in the crisp air and tried to scope out the trail down to the water. This lookout is really popular, and throughout the day we saw people take countless selfies.
To get to the pool there are no markings, not signage, no stairs. After about an hour of searching around the cliffs, we concluded the trail must double back to the pools after heading more west. We followed the trail to switchbacks that led down to the stream created by this massive spring. But once we were down by the water no trail went upstream – just high desert sage and brush thick and un-navigable.
I was confused. I’d seen photos of people down by the lagoon. But at this point it felt like we had exhausted our options. I was growing wary we wouldn’t make it to the pools today.
We kept going down the trail and from out of the trees a landing deck appeared. We looked at each other confused, we hadn’t seen this on the map or on any blogs.
One side of the landing had collapsed. We shimmied our way over the broken deck and this is when we saw it, the twenty foot raspberry blue water fall off to the right. Unnamed, this water fall alone would be enough for the trip.
You could temperature drop standing in the misting shadows of the water fall. This manufactured humidity created an environment to support a small rain forest. Everything around the falls was lush and grew extra tall. It was a reminder of how clean water is the lifeblood of living things.
As we stood at its base, engulfed in the spray from the falls crisp water, the thought seemed to happen simultaneously for both of us. We took our clothes off and jumped in.
You know the cold where it makes the inside of your ears hurt? Where breath seems to evaporate in you lungs and your fright-or-flight spikes? It was that type of cold. The type of cold that will wake you up tomorrow morning.
The needle-like pain was shocking in every sense of the world, and led to a numbness that was both pleasant and somewhat disconcerting, like it could sneak up on you and lay you to sleep.
As we shivered in the basin, surrounded by farm land and the old world we laughed about how aggressively we were nipping and then wrangled our clothes back on and headed farther down the trail.
The canyon opened up and we found ourself on a bridge that we later wished we had brought a picnic for. We shared the bridge with a nest of wasps, and after enough time to soak in the surroundings, we headed back up the trail. It was time for the lagoons.
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It took two hours, two hours learning every rock, shrub and potential way down. We couldn’t find it.
It was taunting me. So close, silently chuckling with a smirk. She knew how much I wanted it. Would the lagoon win this day?
And then Mother Nature showed it to me, the humble crack that leads down to one of her children. The overwhelming gratification was thrilling, the best combination of chemicals. The path looked like the stairs in Lord of the Rings and this reminder of boyhood pleasantly added to the satisfaction.
We made our way down the crevice, slowly descending into the basin.
I’m not going to share the way down with you. There’s something special about this search, something exhilarating about finding the crack in the rocks and I don’t want to take that away from you.
I also don’t want to make it easy for people to get down. This place could be abused by people more interested in their next Instagram photo than the beauty and I don’t want that. Box Canyon State Park’s lagoons deserve to be touched as little as possible, and I’m going to respect this.
I want to implore people who find it to keep this secret as well. Share it sparingly so we can keep this special place pristine.
Once down the cliff face, you’ll wind through the sage brush to the rocks by the lagoon. There are a bunch of boulders to lounge on. I regret not brings a hibachi grill, it’s the perfect venue for a bbq. Fish are abundant in the lagoon as well, so bring your fly rod.
By the lagoon we sunned on the rocks and swam when we felt like it. Some people yelled at us from the crest above and ask how to get down and we vaguely gave them instructions. In all honesty I didn’t want to share. I found this feeling odd, it’s normally not one I have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt1qeuliMdc
After an hour or so of chilling, we were satisfied and traversed the cliff face up to the trail and back to the car.
We had a ticket from the ranger. Oops, I forgot to pay. It didn’t matter, we packed ourselves in the car waring soggy clothes and drove back to Boise teeth baring.
