Bull Creek Hot Springs
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Out past Cascade in Valley County, Bull Creek Hot Springs has a hole in its record: the survey calls the water hot and gives no temperature at all. Nobody can tell you from this page if it soaks. The file marks access as open. The water surfaces a few hundred feet from the Bull Creek trail, which the record treats as the nearest road, at something over five thousand feet within Boise National Forest boundaries.
Reaching it means a short walk once the driving ends. The country is high and the winters are serious, close to fifteen feet of snow in an average year, and this corner of the forest is wet, close to forty inches a year. Peace Valley Campground is the nearest developed camping, around five miles off. What the walk itself is like is not written down anywhere.
No season is rated best for this spring. Take the temperature gap seriously: the only chemistry on hand is a 1979 sample, strongly alkaline, and it says nothing about heat beyond the single word hot. Go expecting to look before you decide anything. Peace Valley is the campground to aim for, and the Forest Service is the landlord.
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 Bull Creek Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 529 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northwest
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 twice the US average of 65. It's higher than at 73% 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 Bull Creek Hot Springs is alkaline (pH 9.5).
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Overview Peace Valley Campground sits just 27 miles north of Garden Valley, Idaho, at an elevation of 4591 feet. The beautiful Peace Valley offers excellent hiking, motorcycle riding, fishing, and hunting opportunities. Recreation Peace Valley offers several trails for hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, and OHV use. Peace Creek Trail and Bitter Creek Trail (both motorcycle trails) begin nearby. The Rattlesnake Trail and 465 ATV Trail are in the vicinity of the campground. Peace...
Bull Creek Hot Springs is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. Cold air temperatures make a changing robe or warm layers essential.
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Springs Near Bull Creek Hot Springs
Alkaline Springs (pH ~9.5)
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