Sheep Creek Bridge Hot Spring
Sheep Creek Bridge Hot Spring comes up beside Middle Fork Road inside Boise National Forest, Boise County, a dozen or so miles from Idaho City. The water is scalding at the source, over 140 degrees on the 1981 reading. Open access. OpenStreetMap calls it Sheep Creek Bridge Hot Springs, plural. A photo is on file. Idaho City is the closest town the record names.
Middle Fork Road passes less than a hundred yards away. Reaching the water takes no effort worth mentioning. National forest, low down for the mountains. The snow figure is about seven feet; the year is moderately wet.
Ninemeyer Campground is six miles away. Winter is the best season on record. At the source it will burn on contact; do not get in where the water comes out, and test any pool with a hand first. Forest Service ground, open to anyone. The chemistry is from 1981.
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 Sheep Creek Bridge 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.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 571 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the south
A slice through the ground from north to south, 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 84% 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 Sheep Creek Bridge Hot Spring is alkaline (pH 9.5).
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Overview:Due to a wildfire, there are no amenities at the campground. Currently there are no developed campfire rings therefore when Stage 1 fire restrictions area in effect, no fires are permitted.A stay at Ninemeyer Campground enables guests to enjoy all the beauty and recreation offered along the (Middle Fork Boise River Road) Forest Service (FS) Road 268. Weather is usually good from mid-May through late September and is easily accessible by car in good weather, although the road is some...
Sheep Creek Bridge Hot Spring 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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