Billy Hot 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.
Valley County, Idaho, twenty-six miles from Cascade, on Payette National Forest land close to South Fork Salmon River Road: that is where you find Billy Hot Spring. Recorded as hot, no temperature given. A 1980 water sample shows a strongly alkaline pH. Open access. Under a mile of walking from the road. Shoreline is the campground in the record, eight miles away.
Snow is the defining number here: over sixteen feet in a winter, with a wet year overall. Elevation is near fifty-eight hundred feet. Forest Service land, no further designation. From South Fork Salmon River Road it is a short walk, eight tenths of a mile by the record.
No best months, no temperature on file. Sixteen feet of snow will sit on this country for a good part of the year. Shoreline is the camping option on record. The spring is recorded as hot; test before touching. Alkaline water from a 1980 sample is all the chemistry there is. Open access.
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 Billy Hot Spring.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 576 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the north
A slice through the ground from northwest to southeast, 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 36% 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.
The water at Billy Hot Spring is alkaline (pH 9.7).
Overview Shoreline Campground is located just across the road from beautiful Warm Lake, at an elevation of 5,300 feet. Visitors enjoy boating, fishing, swimming, hiking and viewing local wildlife. Recreation Warm Lake offers great fishing opportunities for cutthroat, rainbow, lake and bull trout. Boating, canoeing and swimming are popular activities. Billy Rice Swim Beach is nearby, offering a day-use site for picnicking and swimming. A boat ramp is located just across the road from the camp...
Billy Hot Spring sits at 5,790 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 23% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Springs Near Billy Hot Spring
Alkaline Springs (pH ~9.7)
Hike 6 waterfalls near Billy Hot Spring
Looking for more outdoor adventures? Explore waterfall hikes near Billy Hot Spring, Idaho.