Radium Hot Springs
Radium Hot Springs emerges at 135°F in Baker County, Oregon, making it one of the hotter accessible thermal features in the Blue Mountains. The spring flows at 3,313 feet elevation with a water temperature 87 degrees above the surrounding air, requiring a 662-meter walk from La Grande-Baker Highway.
The spring sits in forested uplands of the Blue Mountains, where Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir dominate the landscape at mid-elevation. At 3,313 feet, the area receives 23.5 inches of annual precipitation and 73 inches of snow, creating a transition zone between montane forest and drier valleys below. The terrain features rolling hills cut by seasonal drainages, with Baker City visible from ridges to the east. Federal forest land surrounds the spring.
Documentation of this spring's name and early history remains limited in available records. The radium designation likely references early 20th-century beliefs about radioactive minerals in thermal waters, a common naming pattern across the American West before radiological science advanced. Current status is undeveloped backcountry.
Access requires a 662-meter walk from La Grande-Baker Highway, passable in summer and early fall when snowmelt recedes. Winter snows of 73 inches make approach difficult November through May. Bring navigation tools as trails are informal. Anthony Lake Guard Station offers reservable lodging 23 kilometers away.
Is Radium Hot Springs worth visiting?
Best for
- Hot spring soaking
- Overnight camping trips
Overview Anthony Lake forms the source of Anthony Creek, named for William 'Doc' Anthony, an ambitious homesteader who came to Baker County in 1864. He was a farmer and a doctor, collected tolls on the Dealy Wagon Road for a time, and ran his ranch until he died in 1914 at age 85. Anthony Lake Guard Station is a historic Civilian Conservation Corps log cabin built in the 1930s - one of only a few Forest Service cabins built of logs. For questions for Anthony Lake, Grande Ronde Lake, Mud Lake,...