Sheep Creek 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.
Sheep Creek Hot Spring sits in the Payette National Forest with a recorded temperature in the mid 130s, past what most people can sit in. It lies in Valley County around 28 miles from McCall. You walk in; the closest road sits roughly three and a half miles away. Public access is open.
Forest Service land at about 6,600 feet. No road is named in the record. Snow piles up here, averaging over 160 inches, and the yearly average stays in the upper thirties, so the route in spends much of the year under snow and the window for a dry approach is short. Precipitation is on the wetter side for central Idaho.
For best months the record says December through February. With that much snow and a long hike that seems unlikely, so do not lean on it. Go when the ground is clear. Johnson Creek Guard Station is the closest listed camping, eight or nine miles off. Water this hot can scald. No fee is noted.
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 Hot Spring.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 568 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southwest
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 8% 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.
Overview Johnson Creek Guard Station was built in 1922 and offers a charming mountain respite with modern conveniences. The cabin offers nearly everything needed for a pleasant and comfortable stay. Peak season for the cabin is typically early June through late September. It can be accessed by most vehicles via dirt and gravel roads, but trailers are not recommended.Recreation The cabin is near several trailheads into the Frank Church - River of No Return Wilderness. These non-motorized tr...
Sheep Creek Hot Spring sits at 6,590 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 26% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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