Prospector 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.
Prospector Hot Springs lies six and a half miles beyond Savage Pass Road in the Nezperce National Forest, Ravalli County, more than fifty miles from Hamilton. Whoever recorded it called the water hot and left it at that. No temperature figure exists. The record lists public access as open. Nothing is on file about a fee.
Low elevation for a backcountry spring, a bit over three thousand feet, in wet country where snow stacks up close to fifteen feet over a winter. The approach from Savage Pass Road is long, and nothing in the record says what the route is like. Forest Service ground. What the ground around the outlet looks like is not recorded.
Best months were never recorded. With that much snow the usable season is the warm half of the year, and the forest is the place to ask about conditions. Camping nearest is Elk Summit Campground, about seven miles away. No fee is listed. Treat the water temperature as unknown and test it before getting near the outlet.
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 Prospector Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the southeast.
- Highest ground nearby
- 461 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 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 25% 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.
This sweet destination of a campground rests a short distance from the 1.34 million acre Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Located just 24 miles south of Highway 12, you'll have available to you 15 campsites, stock facilities, stunning scenery, and access to some of the nation's wildest country including many remote alpine lakes and mountain peaks. Hoodoo Lake is just a short stroll from the campground.
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