Invictus to Alaska 2024: Warm(?) Springs Bay

Tonight we are in Red Bluff Bay on Baranof Island for the third night. We tried to leave this morning but when we stuck our nose out into Chatham Strait conditions were too nasty so we opted to return to this beautiful anchorage for another relaxing night. We will make a post about Red Bluff Bay in a couple days.

This post is about Warm Springs Bay, also on Baranof Island just a few miles north of Red Bluff. Warm Springs is a tiny remote community with no roads, no ferry service, no fuel, no store, no phone, no school, etc. You get the idea. We estimate there are around 20 places here. Everyone we met had a smile and were very welcoming.

The public dock at Warm Springs Bay is very nice. It is small and has no power, but they do provide unfiltered water. The available space filled up each the afternoon with a mix of pleasure boats and commercial fishing boats.

Baranof Island is well-populated with bears, especially brown bears (aka grizzly bears). We made noise and carried bear spray. We only saw one bear poop on our hikes... and we didn't step in it. Photo available upon request to admin@poop_me.com.

This minuscule library is at the public picnic shelter near the dock. Believe it or not, this library is even smaller than the one at Tatla Lake. And there is no staff. Little Free Library

The "village" of Baranof Warm Springs has no roads, but has an excellent network of well kept boardwalks. This one provides access to several homes and then leads to the base of the waterfall, shown below.

The falls are spectacular...and noisy.

The falls end directly at tidewater; there is no estuary. And yet in the uber clear water we could see there was a large school of pink salmon waiting to spawn. We are puzzled about where they can spawn since it is all part of tidewater. We couldn't see any spawning gravel, which the salmon would typically required.

There were a couple seals trying to catch the salmon and further along the shoreline we saw a river otter.

The hot spring pools are right beside this amazing river, about 1.5 km above the falls.


Peter is napping in the lower pool.

There are two pools, both created using strategically placed rock and mortar walls. The large pool is very hot, so most people start their soak in the lower pool, which is slightly cooler. Once you're acclimatized to the small pool temperature, then you can move to the upper pool.

Nearby there is a cold pool that you can use to cool off enough to go back into the hot pools for another go round.
Here is a link to a YouTube video of the falls, Baranof Lake and the Warm Springs harbour. At 2:24 you can stop the video to see the two hot pools on the left side of the river at the bottom of the screen.

We found this evidence of the original pipeline that brought water to the village. There's not much left of it but you can see it is made with wooden slats wrapped with a continuous coil of wire. We guess they didn't know about plastic back then.

This is how the water supply reaches the village now. There is a nascent plan to create a hydro power supply from the river and a private salmon hatchery (all hatcheries in Alaska are private). Currently (pun intended) there is a small 12V hydro-powered generator. The output from that is shared among all the residents.

12V micro hydro generator

Another view of this beautiful mountain river.

We both loved this bathhouse and used it three times. There are three private rooms with locking doors and privacy curtains that can be pulled back to take in the view of the falls and the mountains.

The water comes in at 111 degrees so there is a cold tap provided for tempering. Yeah, yeah, we asked ourselves the same question - Why is it called Baranof Warm Springs when actually it is very hot. We propose a name change.

After each use, the water is drained and there is a scrubby brush to clean the tub for the next client. At least one tub was in use all day and we saw a line up several times.