Red River 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.
Red River Hot Springs belongs to the Nezperce National Forest in Idaho County, forty-five miles from Grangeville and a short distance off an unnamed road, with access recorded as open. The water runs hot, beyond what most bathers tolerate at the source. The 1982 sample showed iron along with the usual minerals.
High enough for serious snow, fifteen feet in an average winter, in wet country. Roadside access, a few dozen yards from the car, once the road is clear. Walker Cabin is the nearest listed camping, about seventeen miles out. National Forest designation and nothing more specific in the record. How the outlet and its surroundings look never made it into the file.
Midwinter is the listed season. The outlet water will burn bare skin, so find the cooled section before you sit. Walker Cabin is where the record says to sleep. Nothing on a fee. The chemistry is from a single sample four decades old.
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 Red River Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the east.
- Highest ground nearby
- 377 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the east
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 close to the US average of 65. It's higher than at 7% 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 Red River Hot Springs is alkaline (pH 9.4) with 274 mg/L total dissolved solids.
Overview Walker Cabin is nestled among trees just off Crooked River Road #233, which leads into the Gospel-Hump Wilderness Area, in the Nez Perce National Forest. The cabin was originally built around 1930 as a summer home. Jerry and Helen Walker purchased the cabin in 1967, then donated it to the U.S. Forest Service in the 1980s. It is now available for public recreational use. The cabin must be reserved in advanced; there are no walk-ups. Recreation Crooked River is a popular area for many...
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