Brown Creek Hot Spring
The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Brown Creek Hot Spring comes up a few steps off Middle Fork Road, Boise National Forest ground about seventeen miles from Idaho City in Boise County. The water is hot in the plain sense, hot enough that you test it with a fingertip before anything else. Access is open on Forest Service land. You can drive to it, and that is most of what there is to say about getting there.
The road does the work. You park, and the water is within about ninety feet, at around four thousand feet in the mountains. Winters here pile up ten feet of snow, which makes the road, and how far it stays plowed, the real question for a good part of the year. Rainfall is moderate. Barber Flat Cabin, a cabin inside the national forest, is the closest listed place to stay, around four miles away.
The best months in the record are the winter ones, which with this much snow means checking the road before you set out. Water this hot will sting if you get straight in, so go slowly. The pH on the page comes from a September 1981 sample and should be read as old news. Nearest camping is the Barber Flat Cabin.
USGS hasn't flown a detailed laser scan here yet, so this view comes from aerial photos and older elevation data.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 724 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northeast
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 2½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 93% 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 Brown Creek Hot Spring is alkaline (pH 9.4).
Some links are affiliate links. We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Overview The Barber Flat Cabin site was established for administrative use by the Forest Service in 1923, and was used prior to that by the Barber Lumber Company. At the time, the Forest Service used a cabin already on-site as a guard station and then built a new one in 1927. The current cabin and outbuildings were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935, and the cabin today looks much as it did back then. Guests can drive to Barber Flat Cabin in two-wheel drive passenger cars or tr...
Brown Creek Hot Spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water runs hot, so extra hydration is key.
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Springs Near Brown Creek Hot Spring
More Springs Around 122°F
Alkaline Springs (pH ~9.4)
Hike 6 waterfalls near Brown Creek Hot Spring
Looking for more outdoor adventures? Explore waterfall hikes near Brown Creek Hot Spring, Idaho.