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Hey I'm trying to find out if Rays Flat Road is open in the winter to access the springs from above. I know the usual road is not maintained a few miles before the trailhead. Does anyone know if Rays is?

Upper road isn't accessible in winter. On the lower (Diamond Fork) road, the gate has just been closed for winter, but at least it's plowed all the way to the gate now. We drove all the way to Dry Fork earlier this month, with caution, but the powed portion ended far short of the gate then.

Are the hot springs fairly accessable in the Winter? I am Going to be in SLC next week and was contimplating skiing back in for a winter soak. is this a possible half day/full day trip or better as an overnight trip. Sorry to highjack the thread.

Word from the wise... Don't take your skis. We went up on Saturday afternoon and I brought my splitboard, and my wife had her skis. The only reason we didn't leave them at the car was because we thought they would get stolen. Anyway, we thought there would be plenty of snow due to the approximately 10 inches forecasted to fall. However, there was no new snow whatsoever. The 3.8 mile section of road from the gate to the trailhead was all packed down from the hikers and snowmobiles. The 2 mile section from the trailhead to the springs was very hardpacked and due to the recent rain we had that ruined our snowpack, it was an almost unskiable icey bobsled run. We actually did ski down it but we left our skins on cause it was too narrow and hardpacked to stop or snowplow.

The springs were nice, but with the road closed it triples the length of the trail. I estimated it at approximately 11.6 miles roundtrip using Google Earth. It took us about 4 hours to make it up and 3.5 to make it down. But if you just took some good waterproof hiking boots or shoes you could easily do it faster.

Anyone know if the Diamond Fork Road is still open to the trailhead? I know it's usually closed this time of year but I was thinking that with our low snow year it may still be open.

I did my own research (don't know why I didn't just call the forest service in the first place) and the road is currently closed 3 miles before the Three Forks Trailhead, in case anyone is interested.