Big Eightmile Creek Warm Spring
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Salmon National Forest, Lemhi County, Idaho: Big Eightmile Creek Warm Spring, a long way from Salmon, around forty-two miles. The water is warm, a little under body temperature, on the cool side of what people soak in. Access is open. It sits about a mile from National Forest Development Road 096, a short walk by the record's class though not a trivial one.
High, over seven thousand feet, with a cold average year and six feet of snow across a winter. Precipitation is otherwise modest. Forest Service land without a further designation. The road, National Forest Development Road 096, is close to a mile from the spring. McFarland Campground is the nearest camping in the record, eleven or twelve miles away.
Winter ranks best by climate. Expect snow on the road then. McFarland is where the record puts camping. The water is warm and comfortable, with no safety worry. No water chemistry exists for this spring and there is no USGS site number. No fee recorded.
Aircraft with laser scanners measured this ground to within inches. The scan strips out trees and buildings, leaving the bare shape of the land around Big Eightmile Creek Warm Spring.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the southwest.
- Highest ground nearby
- 287 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southwest
A slice through the ground from southwest to northeast, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's about 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 57% of the springs on this site.
Heat flow measures the warmth working its way up through the ground from deep inside the earth. Where it runs high, rain and snowmelt that seep down through cracks in the rock come back up hot.
See every spring on the geothermal heat map →
Heat flow estimate: Stanford Thermal Earth Model (Aljubran & Horne, 2024), CC BY 4.0.
Overview McFarland Campground offer 9 campsites for both RVs and tent camping along the Lemhi River. The Lemhi Valley lies between the Beaverhead Mountains and the Lemhi Range, where the river creates a riparian zone in an otherwise arid region. Recreation McFarland Campground offers many recreation opportunities including public river access for fishing the Lemhi River, and area roads lead into the Beaverhead and Lemhi Ranges. The surrounding area offers a multitude of recreation opportunit...
Big Eightmile Creek Warm Spring sits at 7,248 feet above sea level, way above the mile-high mark. You may not feel the altitude strongly, but hot water still dehydrates you faster at elevation. UV is about 29% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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