Secesh 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.
Secesh Hot Spring is a Payette National Forest spring in Valley County, about 23 miles out of McCall. The survey that logged it wrote down the word hot and no number, so there is no temperature to quote and nothing here should be taken as a promise of a soak. Access is listed as open. Reaching it means walking a bit over a mile and a half from the closest road.
High country, close to 6,000 feet, on land the Forest Service manages. The record gives a distance from the road and no road name. Winter is the main fact of life here. The nearest climate station averages well over 160 inches of snow, and the year-round mean hovers near forty, so the ground stays buried for months and the walk in is a warm-season undertaking.
No best months are on file. The access class is hike, with the car left roughly 1.6 miles short of the water. Upper Payette Lake Campground is the closest camping listed, eleven miles or so away. Carry your own expectations about what you will find, since the only description anyone recorded is a single adjective. Put a hand in before anyone climbs in.
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 Secesh Hot Spring.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the east.
- Highest ground nearby
- 224 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 about 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 19% 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 Upper Payette Lake Campground is located 16 miles from McCall, Idaho, on the shores of beautiful Upper Payette Lake. Visitors enjoy fishing, canoeing and exploring local trails. Once on-site, you may be able to pay for your campsite(s) by scanning a QR code using the Recreation.gov mobile app, and the Scan and Pay feature. If this option is available, you will need to first download the free Recreation.gov mobile app https://www.recreation.gov/mobile-app prior to your arrival as so...
Secesh Hot Spring sits at 5,844 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 23% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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Secesh Hot Spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. Cold air temperatures make a changing robe or warm layers essential.
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