The crater Midway
Fifty five feet of tufa, sixty five feet of water and one shaft of daylight
Homestead Crater, and the tunnel they blasted into it.
A geothermal spring in Midway spent thousands of years precipitating limestone around its own mouth until it built a fifty five foot dome over itself. In 1996 somebody drove a hundred and ten foot tunnel into the side. Inside is more than sixty five feet of mineral water at ninety six degrees, lit by a single hole in the roof, and four different ways to be in it.
Southern Utah is my home turf. Midway is not, so these pages are researched rather than lived: checked against city, county and venue sources, and dated so you can see how fresh they are. For the on-the-ground work here I lean on a Wasatch County partner agent.
Start here
A hot spring with a limestone roof over it.
The thing at 700 North Homestead Drive is not a pool with a dome built over it. The dome came first. Geothermal water rising here for thousands of years has left calcium carbonate behind at the surface, layer on layer, until it built a mound of tufa that closed over the spring and left only a hole in the top. The Utah Geological Survey measures that mound at more than two hundred feet across and fifty five feet high, with water below it deeper than sixty five feet and holding steady at ninety five to ninety six degrees Fahrenheit.
Until 1996 the only way in was down. People rappelled through the natural opening in the roof, which is a memorable arrival and a poor commercial proposition. That year a hundred and ten foot tunnel was driven horizontally into the side of the mound, using roughly fifteen tons of dynamite across about four months, and it opened on 12 July 1996. Everybody who visits now walks in through that tunnel at water level, which is why the place reads as a cave rather than as a crater from the inside.
What you get is a circular pool of warm mineral water lit by one shaft of daylight from directly overhead, with rock walls curving up out of the water on every side. It is a strange room. It is also small, which is the practical fact that shapes everything about visiting it.
Homestead Crater at a glance
55 ft
the height of the tufa mound
65 ft
of water, at the deepest point
96 F
held all year, in every season
1886
the year Simon Schneitter opened it to travellers
How the ground made it
Rain on the Wasatch, five thousand feet down, and back up warm.
The Utah Geological Survey describes the mechanism plainly. Precipitation falling on the Wasatch Range soaks in, works down through faults and fractures to depths beyond five thousand feet, and picks up heat from the rock at that depth. The pressure of the water column behind it pushes it back to the surface, and it arrives in this corner of the valley carrying dissolved calcium carbonate.
At the surface the pressure drops and the carbon dioxide comes out of solution, the way it does when you open a bottle. Losing the carbon dioxide changes the chemistry, the carbonate can no longer stay dissolved, and it precipitates as tufa around the mouth of the spring. Do that for long enough and the spring builds its own chimney.
Midway has several dozen of these. Most are modest, mounds three to ten feet high with a crater shaped depression ten to twenty feet across, and the water in them ranges from fifty four to a hundred and four degrees depending on how much cold groundwater is mixing in at that particular spot. The one at the Homestead is simply the largest, which is why it is the one with a tunnel and a ticket desk.
The spring built its own roof out of the mineral it was carrying, and then somebody drilled a door into the side of it.
The other hot pots are not a substitute, and several are on private ground. The same process produced dozens of unimproved springs across the northwest corner of Wasatch County, in pastures, behind houses and along field edges. They are unfenced holes of hot water in soft, undercut rock, with no rail, no lifeguard and no way to get anyone out. Some are on land that belongs to somebody. The crater at 700 North Homestead Drive is the one that is set up for people to be in, and it is the one to use.
Four ways to be in it
Soak, snorkel, dive or balance on a board.
The dome runs four separate products on four separate schedules, and picking the wrong one is the usual way a visit goes sideways. Choose the activity first, then find a slot that matches it.
| What happens | What it needs | When it runs | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Therapeutic soak | Roughly 40 minutes in the water inside a one hour session | A life vest, which is issued and is not optional | Weekdays from 10:30, weekends from 9:30, until 21:30 |
| Swim and snorkel | The same session with a mask and snorkel, rented on site | Confidence in deep water; the vest still applies | The same hours as the soak session |
| Scuba | Open water diving in warm fresh water with no current | Certification, or a supervised intro dive from age 10 | Weekdays from 12:00, weekends from 10:00, until 20:00 |
| Paddleboard yoga | A scheduled class on boards on the surface of the dome | A place on a class rather than a general entry | By class schedule; ask when you book |
Hours and prices were checked with the operator in August 2026. Confirm on 435-654-1102 before driving up, because holiday weeks and private bookings move the schedule.
Why divers come to a hole in a field in Utah
Warm, still, fresh water more than sixty feet deep, available every day of the year, four hundred miles from an ocean. That combination is rare enough that dive schools run certification weekends here and travel a long way to do it. There is no current, no surge, no cold water shock and no weather, which makes it a good place to teach and a good place to shake off a season of not diving. What it does not have is anything to look at, so it is a skills dive rather than a scenic one.
The soak is shorter than the ticket implies
A one hour session is one hour of your time, not one hour in the water. Changing, the walk through the tunnel and getting the vest on take a chunk out of it, and the operator's own figure for time actually in the water is about forty minutes. That is plenty at ninety six degrees. Booking two back to back sessions to get longer is a common instinct and usually a bad one.
The business on top of it
From a Swiss farmer's bathing pool to a resort, in a hundred and forty years.
Simon Schneitter was a Swiss immigrant farming this ground when he opened Schneitter's Hot Pot to travellers in 1886. It was a bathing resort in the plainest sense: hot water, somewhere to change, and a bed if you needed one. The Schneitter operation grew into a hotel and eventually into the Homestead, which is still the business that owns the crater and sells the tickets.
It was not the only one. Luke's Hot Pots, from the same decade, became the Mountain Spa, so by the 1890s a farming valley had two spring fed resorts in it. That is the origin of Midway as a place people travel to rather than only through, and it predates skiing in this part of Utah by half a century.
The 1996 tunnel is the other turning point. Before it the crater was a curiosity you had to be roped into; after it, it was an attraction with a queue. Everything about how the place is run now, timed slots, vests, small changing rooms, follows from putting a door in the side of a chamber that was never designed to hold a crowd. The Swiss Days page picks up the settlement story the Schneitters were part of.
Next door
The state park above town
Twenty one and a half thousand acres, four golf courses, two campgrounds and a county road up to Guardsman Pass, all of it northwest of the crater.
The state park pageFour miles southwest
The Olympic venue
A 2002 Nordic venue that is already building for 2034, with seven tubing lanes and a public biathlon range in the meantime.
The venue pageThe practical version
Midway, for buyers
Utilities, the tax split, the nightly rental overlay, schools and the market, in one place rather than scattered.
The city guideKeep reading
More of Midway on The Local.
Things to do
The top 9, ranked
Nine picks, ranked, starting with a hot spring inside a limestone dome.
Read the guideThe Olympic venue
Soldier Hollow
A 2002 Olympic venue that never closed, and is already building for 2034.
Read the guideThe state park
Wasatch Mountain State Park
Four public eighteens, two campgrounds, and a county road to Guardsman Pass.
Read the guideThe heritage
Swiss Days
A harvest festival from 1947, and a town hall built out of pot rock.
Read the guideMoving here
Midway or Heber City
Three miles apart, one school district, and two very different rulebooks.
Read the guideThe companion
Midway, in one place
The crater, the Olympic venue, the park, the festival and two addresses.
Read the pageQuick answers
The crater, answered.
A geothermal hot spring inside a limestone dome in Midway, Utah. Water rising here has precipitated calcium carbonate at the surface for thousands of years and built a mound of tufa over its own outlet, more than two hundred feet across and fifty five feet high, with a natural opening left in the top. The water inside is deeper than sixty five feet and holds at ninety five to ninety six degrees Fahrenheit all year. The address is 700 North Homestead Drive, on the Homestead resort grounds.
Through a tunnel in the side of the dome. Until 1996 the only entrance was the natural opening in the roof, which visitors reached by rappelling down. That year a hundred and ten foot tunnel was driven horizontally into the mound using roughly fifteen tons of dynamite over about four months, and it opened on 12 July 1996. Every visitor now walks in at water level through that tunnel, which is why the interior reads more like a cave than like a crater.
The Utah Geological Survey records it as constant at ninety five to ninety six degrees Fahrenheit, and the operator describes it as approximately ninety to ninety six degrees. It does not vary with the season, because the heat comes from rock thousands of feet underground rather than from the sun. Other hot pots around Midway run anywhere from fifty four to a hundred and four degrees depending on how much cold groundwater mixes in at that particular spring.
Yes, and it is one of the reasons the place is known outside Utah. The water is warm, still, fresh and more than sixty five feet deep, with no current and no weather, which makes it a useful place to certify divers and to shake the rust off after a winter. Diving hours run from noon on weekdays and from ten at weekends, finishing at eight in the evening. Certified divers bring their own paperwork, and supervised introductory dives start at age ten.
You should have one. The chamber is small and the operator sells timed slots, so entry is by session rather than open access, and weekends and holidays fill. Walk ups are taken when there is space, which on a July Saturday there often is not. Book the activity you actually want, because soaking, snorkelling, diving and paddleboard yoga run on different schedules, and confirm on 435-654-1102 before making the drive.
A therapeutic mineral soak has run about thirty dollars for a one hour session, with diving and class based activities priced separately and higher. Rates and hours move, so check the current sheet with the operator rather than with a travel page. Whatever you book, the hour is a session rather than an hour in the water: the operator's own figure for time actually in the water during a one hour soak is roughly forty minutes.
It is set up for people who are not strong swimmers, in that life vests are required for everyone entering the water and are issued as part of the session. The floor drops away quickly to more than sixty five feet, there is one small area of shallow footing, and the light is limited to what comes through the hole in the roof. Introductory scuba starts at age ten. Anyone bringing young children should ring ahead and ask the operator directly about the current minimum age and the vest sizes they carry.
The Homestead resort, which is the descendant of the business a Swiss immigrant named Simon Schneitter opened on this ground in 1886 as Schneitter's Hot Pot. He was farming here, the spring was on his land, and he began letting travellers bathe in it. The operation grew into a hotel and then into the resort that runs the crater today. A second spring resort from the same decade, Luke's Hot Pots, became the Mountain Spa.
Several dozen active hot pots exist across the northwest corner of Wasatch County, but they are unimproved springs rather than facilities. They sit in pastures, along field edges and behind houses, some of them on private land, and they are unfenced openings of hot water in soft undercut rock with no rail, no lifeguard and no way to recover anyone who gets into difficulty. The crater at the Homestead is the one developed for public use, and it is the one to go to.
A hole in the ground that says a lot about this valley.
The same water that fills the crater is why the town hall is built out of pot rock, why two resorts opened here in the 1880s and why the fields north of town have steam coming off them on a February morning. It also raises real questions on a specific parcel, from what the ground is made of to what conveys with the irrigation water.
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Say what you are looking for and I will put the right Wasatch County agent on it.