Elkhorn 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.
Elkhorn Hot Spring, also known as Boat Box Hot Spring, is a Custer County roadside spring on the Salmon River Scenic Byway. The tub water comes in hot, mid 130s. Open access. The land is Idaho Department of Lands ground under an SRMA designation. Challis is the nearest town on file at 37 miles, though the Wikipedia entry places the spring about three miles from Stanley. For camping, the record points to Sunny Gulch Campground.
The byway passes within about 240 feet. Elevation is high and the yearly mean hovers around 40. A dozen feet of snow is a normal winter here. The spring itself is the tub Wikipedia describes, on the riverbank, so the setting is the Salmon River and the highway beside it.
December through February are the listed best months. A highway corridor under twelve feet of snow usually gets plowed, but find out. The water needs cooling in the tub before you get in. No chemistry is on file. Sunny Gulch is the closest camping.
Wikipedia calls this Boat Box Hot Spring and says it is also known as Elkhorn Hot Spring. The spring is a single metal tub fed through a plastic tube built into the Salmon River bank, about three miles from Stanley on Idaho State Highway 75. The name comes from a historical wooden tub that was used before annual spring flooding destroyed it.
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 Elkhorn Hot Spring.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 455 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southeast
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 82% 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.
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Overview Sunny Gulch Campground sits along the shores of Salmon River in the forests of central Idaho. Recreation Excellent fishing is right out your back door on the Salmon River, with rainbow trout, Westslope cutthroat trout and occasional hybrid cutbows and bull trout available. Sunny Gulch lies in the heart of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. A myriad of excellent hiking and biking opportunities are available, and an estimated 750 miles of trails crisscross the valley and surround...
Elkhorn Hot Spring sits at 6,155 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 25% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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Elkhorn Hot Spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water runs hot, so extra hydration is key. Cold air temperatures make a changing robe or warm layers essential.
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