Oxbow Hot Springs

Oxbow Hot Springs serves the Snake River corridor at Oxbow, Oregon, near the entrance to Hells Canyon — the deepest river gorge in North America, where the Snake River has cut 7,913 feet below the surrounding plateau rim in a canyon deeper than the Grand Canyon that forms the boundary between Oregon and Idaho in a landscape of dramatic isolation and geological antiquity accessible primarily by river float or jet boat. The canyon's extreme depth creates distinct ecological zones from the semi-desert rim environment to the riparian canyon bottom, sheltering rare plants, California bighorn sheep, rattlesnakes, and the spawning chinook salmon and steelhead trout that continue their remarkable upstream migration through this formidable canyon despite the dams that have altered much of the Snake River system. The bicarbonate thermal springs, heated by the geothermal activity of the Columbia Plateau volcanic province, provide mineral bathing on the canyon's Oregon rim where the scale of Hells Canyon below — America's deepest gorge, its walls plunging nearly a mile and a half to the river — places the simple act of soaking in warm mineral water against a geological backdrop of overwhelming grandeur and geological timescale.