Hooper Springs is a great place to relax and have a picnic.  I remember coming here often when I was younger and we would play on the teeter totters, go down the slides, and play on the giant tires.  This is a fun place for children and adults alike.  There are two toys that spin around and are terribly fun but make me almost throw up.  The park has covered pavilions, a basketball court, lots of green grass, picnic benches, and some BBQ pits.

A group of friends and I visited Hooper Spring recently on our way home from a rafting trip on the Snake River.  All of us are grown adults (most of us anyway) and we all got on the teeter totters and the spinny playground equipment and we were all just laughing and having a great time.  This place really is fun for everyone!

The actual springs are located under a red gazebo near the parking lot.  You aren’t allowed to swim in the springs, only drink from it.  Just bring your own cup and dip it in the water and give it a taste.  Some people really like this stuff and others think it tastes horrible.  I actually didn’t mind the taste – it takes like soda water!  Bring some packets of punch or make lemonade out of it!  Apparently, it’s very hard water from all the minerals.  There is a sign that tells you what the minerals are in parts per million:

• Silica – 69
• Iron – 14
• Calcium – 150
• Magnesium – 61
• Sodium and potassium – 48
• Bicarbonate radical – 1,298
• Sulphate radical – 66
• Chloride radial – 9.6
• Nitrate radical – Trace
• Dissolved solids – 1,149
• Carbon dioxide gas – 1,503

The kiosk by the spring will tell you that some of the earliest mentions of this spring come from the 1874 as people were using the Oregon Trail.  It hit real fame when ZCMI (Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution) president, W.H. Hooper, built a summer home at the park.  He did lots to make the springs known to the world.  Eventually a bottling company bottled the soda water and shipped it all over the world.  In 1936 improvements were made around the spring to protect it.