Thirty years ago, when the Wood River Land Trust set out to sell its soon-to-be inaugural executive director on the job, board members drove Scott Boettger west of Hailey and up the rise into Democrat Gulch.
Before them, the 2,300 acres of what’s now called Hailey Hot Springs Ranch wrapped around Democrat Creek and up the drainage, peaking on the far ridgeline some 5 miles and 1,700 vertical feet away. The board’s message was clear: Imagine.
For the nascent conservation group, the visit was as much an expression of a dream as a statement of intent. Someday, they’d have the means and support to purchase and preserve something like this, a mile or so from the downtown county seat.
That day came in the summer of 2024 when a “For Sale” sign popped up along Croy Creek Road. The opportunity also presented the Land Trust with a problem: For $15 million, anyone could buy it. With 360 acres of the property zoned for residential housing, the clock started when the sign hit the roadside.
“It’s essential to act now,” said Land Trust board member Jeff Seely. “It’s been a really high development cycle in the Blaine County region. This would be the perfect place to build 100 houses.
“Now, more than ever, we have to do this. We have to get this money.”
So, Executive Director Amy Trujillo and her team got to work on the Land Trust’s largest fundraising mission to date. They’d need to buy the land plus raise another $1 million to endow maintenance.
It didn’t take long for the Land Trust to find partners that shared its vision. The Blaine County Recreation District promised to help. So did The Heart of the Rockies Foundation and the Idaho chapter of The Nature Conservancy, as well as a committed cadre of local, state and regional donors.
The first checkpoint came on Feb. 11, when they successfully showed the necessary $10 million to keep the land under contract. The rest, Trujillo said, is due at the end of 2025.
For Trujillo and Lands Program Director Chad Stoesz, the value of the ranch justifies the cost. They took a “comprehensive look at the history of the property” before launching the campaign, Stoesz said. Their conclusion: The ranch is not only representative of the valley’s past but also indicative of its future.
A dedicated pedestrian could start on the far end of the greenway and walk 6 miles of wetlands, streams, and sage to the end of Hailey Hot Springs Ranch without touching a fence.
Looking back, Democrat Gulch once held the Hailey Hot Springs Hotel, among the first commercial retreats promoted in the Idaho Territory until in burned down in 1899. Two decades later, landowners piped water down the canyon to fill a pool at the Hiawatha Hotel. Today, a stand of willows marks the spot of the long-gone attraction. Partnering with the Blaine County Recreation District, Trujillo hopes to reintroduce that use with a simple visitor center—and geothermal pool—by Croy Canyon Road, accessible by a BCRD bike path that will connect to downtown Hailey.
Looking forward, the wide, sloping canyon represents one of Blaine County’s most resilient landscapes in a changing climate, according to a broad study by The Nature Conservancy. The canyon walls rise 2,000 feet from mouth to peak, offering a huge range for flora and fauna to find a livable environment amid uncertain conditions.
That continuity is important for people, too, especially as access debates rage across the Mountain West. The current plan doesn’t call for additional trails aside from the BCRD’s new bike path. Usage will likely stay the same as it has always been: walking, biking, or snowshoeing the designated trails. But Hailey Hot Springs Ranch abuts a swath of other open spaces, including the Hailey Greenway, Draper and Simons/Bauer preserves. A dedicated pedestrian could start on the far end of the greenway and walk 6 miles of wetlands, streams, and sage—traversing prime habitat for sage grouse and migration corridors for big game—to the end of Hailey Hot Springs Ranch without touching a fence. Beyond the last peak, you’re on public land, with tens of thousands of acres ahead.
“When you talk about different conservation values, this has just about all of them,” Trujillo said. “We’ve been working 30 years to protect important, special places—this is the epitome. It checks all the boxes.”
On a warm March afternoon, Stoesz and Trujillo walked the late winter road up Democrat Gulch. At the crest, where Boettger and the board stood 30 years earlier, they looked up at the snowy peaks that bounded the ranch. Trujillo imagined the hillsides months on, seeing it purple with lupine in spring, flame orange in encroaching fall. She saw Hailey Hot Springs Ranch as it could someday be—which is to say, how it has always been.
“The scale of this, you just couldn’t do it with one person,” she said. “It’s going to take a lot of work.”
“But,” Stoesz noted, “we’re on the right track.”