Chico Hot Springs

Bill Knowles reached Paradise Valley in the 1870s to stake a gold claim in Emigrant Gulch, and there he met and married a Montana schoolteacher, Percie Matheson. The gold panned out poorly, but Percie noticed the miners soaking and doing their laundry in a natural hot spring nearby and understood what it was worth. The couple convinced the landowner to sell them the acreage around the spring, reportedly for a token sum.

They opened their inn in 1900, a Victorian-styled hotel with room for a few dozen guests, elegant meals, a dance hall, and a warm plunge pool. Under Percie's management it became a genuine destination, drawing travelers into a remote mountain valley for the healing waters. The original hotel survives and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

At the heart of Chico are two open-air pools fed by natural geothermal water, one warm for lounging and one cooler for swimming, ringed by the resort buildings with the mountains rising beyond. Soaking here after dark, with steam curling into the cold Montana night and stars overhead, is the experience people remember.

The historic 1900 lodge is all narrow halls, old woodwork, and period rooms, more characterful than fancy, and there are newer cabins and lodgings on the grounds for those who want modern comforts. Around the pools the resort has grown into a small village of a place, but the old hotel still sets the tone.

The dining room is Chico's other legend. Far out in ranch country, it turns out ambitious, polished meals, much of the produce grown in the resort's own greenhouse, warmed by the same geothermal water. A dinner here has surprised generations of travelers who expected roadhouse fare.

Chico's setting is half the draw. Paradise Valley runs between the towns of Livingston and Gardiner, a wide green trough with the Yellowstone River, a blue-ribbon trout stream, threading down the middle and big mountain ranges walling it in on both sides. Elk and deer winter on the slopes, and the light on the Absarokas at sunset is worth the trip alone.

The North Entrance of Yellowstone at Gardiner lies a short drive up the valley, making Chico a favorite soaking base for park visits, especially in the shoulder seasons and winter, when a long hot bath is the perfect end to a cold day watching bison and wolves in the Lamar country.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.