Yellowstone Hot Springs — Attraction in Big Sky

Okay, so before I get into this whole review I am going to start by stating what I enjoyed about the springs the most and then move into why I ended up giving this place 3 stars altogether. So read all the way through for a thorough review and opinion.

What I enjoyed: 1.) We stayed on the campground and the two camp host Frances and Susan were amazing, kind, and accommodating people. Susan especially made our trip wonderful with her great conversations and an enthusiastic personality. Frances was accommodating to a late check out time which I appreciated. 2.) the campground showers/toilets were very clean and organized. Someone came To take out trashes and clean sinks everyday. 3.) laundry was only 1.00 for washer and 1.00 for dryer which is an incredible price. (Sometimes the coin things get stuck and you have to really push it in there). 4.) They have well water to fill up your jugs with for drinking, very tasty. 5.) The hot springs were very warm and cozy, quieter in morning, busy at sunset. 6.) campground sits on the river, very peaceful and serene. 7.) They close mondays and clean all the pools which is awesome. So best day to soak is Tuesday mornings for freshest water.

Now moving into what I did not like or appreciate at all. 1.) One of their employees lives in a tent on campground and one of the other employees kept driving into camp on their four wheeler flashing their bright lights into our van until almost midnight our first night to hang with person in tent. 2.) there is a sign that says 5 MPH as you’re coming into parking lot and people including workers kept speeding in and out of there all day/night. Even at 6am. No regulation. Every time we told someone about it, all they could do was send a text message but people kept blatantly speeding through. 3.) the lady at the hot springs desk (morning lady) doesn’t speak great English and she wasn’t understanding when I kept telling her I didn’t want a stamp on my arm because I was going out to dinner and wanted to look nice and I wanted her to just stamp a piece of paper for me since I was a camper so I could come back later. She proceeded to grab my arm and stamp me anyway and told me it shouldn’t wash off and it would be fine. So I went to dinner with an ugly blue stamp on my skin. 3.) you pay about $30 a night to camp and then still have to pay to soak. They give you $5 off so you pay $13 but it still seems steep when you are already paying to stay the night. Also you have to wait in line when you could just potentially buy soaking passes when you pay to stay but they don’t have that option yet. 4.) we were really excited for the coffee shop as their sign says Tuesday-Sunday 10-5, however nobody ever showed up, and when we asked the hot springs front desk lady she said she didn’t know and couldn’t help us. Come to find out, they now open wed-Sunday even though their hours say Tuesday-Sunday. See pictures below for proof. 5.) they have laminated pieces of paper zip tied to the outside railings of temperature for pools and huge orange buckets/traffic cones in the way of stairs. Very tacky looking and not to mention the 106 paper is tied to the 66 degree pool and the 66 paper is tied to the 106 pool. 6.) the wifi pavilion on campground does not in fact have wifi, but you can charge your phones and batteries there. You need to go closer to office to get wifi. 7.) the workers were dirt biking and four wheeling around the entire 2 days we were there, being loud and blowing dirt into the air. Gave off a very ‘dirty’ and ‘unprofessional’ vibe for the guest paying to stay there.

All of that being said, it was a cute spot but I definitely wouldn’t camp again. The person who saved the experience for us was Susan. She did her best to communicate with us and listen to our complaints. Plus the scenery of the mountains while soaking is wonderful. Thanks for taking the time to read this and look forward to seeing future...

The positives: The scenery all around is gorgeous, the lady at the front desk was kind, and the locker rooms were well maintained and clean.

The negatives: The main pool was gross. Somehow all 3 pools were weird temperatures to enjoy in the summer when we went. Flies everywhere. Dog poop smell.

We came for the day only to do the hot springs. I brought 2 teens and an 11 year old. It was $72 for the 4 of us plus 3 bottles of water. The experience was…weird. There are 3 pools. The main pool is warm water about the temperature of bath water. Then there is hot pool about like a hot tub without jets and a cold plunge pool. There’s a sign posted that they don’t use chemicals because it is a free flowing spring and that meets requirements as long as the entire thing is drained every 72 hours and sanitized. That’s fine, it’s a natural spring. I didn’t expect it to be chlorinated. They are closed on Mondays and we went on a Tuesday morning, so my assumption was it would’ve just been sanitized the day before when they were closed. Unfortunately, it mostly felt gross, and certainly did not seem to have been sanitized in the last 72 hours. There was pretty significant staining on the floor of the main pool that was slippery/slimy feeling in some areas and lots of orange staining in other areas (like what happens to bathtubs with hard water). There were some places they seemed to attempt to patch cracks, but then left piles of grout which solidified and just looked like mud around the rim of the hot pool. I’m sure in cooler months the warm pool would feel nice. In the summer it was an odd temperature - too warm to swim in but the cold pool was freezing. I did enjoy the hot spring area for a bit to soak as you would in a hot tub, but it was 90 degrees outside so I couldn’t stay in there long. There was also a smell of dog poop that seemed to come from the area of grass behind the 3 pools. There were so many flies - they were all over the pool dead and attacking our faces when we were not in the water. I’m sure that part is not the business’ fault, but it did make the experience less pleasant. My 16-year-old daughter sat in the warm pool less than an hour, then asked to go change, then was attacked by flies and asked to go sit in the car. She normally loves to swim. The 11-year-old lasted a little longer. She enjoyed the cold pool, which was by far the cleanest of the 3. My other teen said it was “OK” but he wasn’t upset when I told him we were going to go ahead and leave. Overall, I felt like I paid $72 to swim in the pool of a budget hotel...

My review is for the campground, not the hot springs. The hot springs are 4/5. I'd go again for the day but would not stay at the campground.

We are in site D. Let me list the problems: we arrive to our site only to find the signage is out of date so we didn't know where the camp office was, so we just went to our site which we had reserved online.

upon arrival at the site, we realized the water and electricity are so apart in the site that we can't use both at the same time. (We paid extra for full hookups)

our picnic table was practically on top of our neighbor's sewer hose. Gross! We moved the picnic table a few feet, but just know that these sites are very close together.

the campground bathrooms are very dated. They aren't the dirtiest I've ever encountered, but also not clean either. They are also damaged. Also note: It would be an extremely long walk if you were in the normal RV section (there are porta potties over there). We chose one of the sites closer to the bathhouse.

lastly, trying to do the right thing and aquire firewood from the place we will use it (as signage all over the region encourages) we were told the campground was done selling firewood for the day and that we needed to breakdown camp and go 5 miles into town to get fire wood. We would have purchased our firewood earlier in the day, but again, we couldn't find the camp office / didn't realize the pool office doesn't also deal with camping issues. There is outdated signage. This would explain why the lady at the pool office looked at me like I had three heads when I went in asking about firewood and whether or not I needed to check in this morning since that office was closed when we arrived last night. She didn't have the answers to my questions / didn't seem to understand my questions, so when I realized she wasn't helpful I just moved on.

So, really just not a good campground. I'd totally go to the springs for the day, but absolutely no way with this campground.

*Edit to add: we did find out the second night that there is a separate camp office. My husband talked...