Deer 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.
Deer Hot Springs in Boise County comes out scalding at 176 degrees, well above anything skin can take. It sits near Banks Lowman Road some 21 miles out of Idaho City. OpenStreetMap calls it Skinny Dipper's Hot Springs, which suggests people do get in somewhere, though nothing on record explains how the water is cooled. Ownership goes unrecorded, and so does access. Swinging Bridge campground is six and a half miles away.
From Banks Lowman Road it is a walk of about 360 feet. The elevation is low for the area, a little over three thousand feet, which does not stop the snow: around six and a half feet of it in a typical winter, in a moderately wet climate. There is no photo, and the terrain goes undescribed.
The listed best season is winter. Six feet of snow beside a named road is usually workable, but the road is still the thing to check. The water will scald; any soaking depends on cooling the record does not describe. The chemistry sample is from 1982. Ask about access before you go; it is not on record.
The spring carries a second name on OpenStreetMap, Skinny Dipper's Hot Springs. Nothing on record says which name is older or where the second one came from.
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 Deer Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 805 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the north
A slice through the ground from west to east, 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 87% 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 Deer Hot Springs is slightly alkaline (pH 8.2).
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Overview Swinging Bridge Campground is located 10 miles north of Banks, Idaho just off Highway 55 at an elevation of 4,000 feet. The North Fork Payette River flows next to the highway, where extreme kayaking is a popular activity.Recreation The North Fork of the Payette River is a very popular location for expert kayaking. Whitewater rafting is nearby on the Main and South Fork sections of the Payette River. Anglers will find good to excellent fishing for whitefish and rainbow trout.Facili...
Deer Hot Springs is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water is dangerously hot, so bring water shoes and test pools carefully.
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