Sheepeater 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.
Sheepeater Hot Springs is a backcountry thermal point within Boise National Forest in Valley County, upward of forty miles from Cascade. The record calls it hot without giving a number; the only measurement is a 1980 water sample showing strongly alkaline water. The access status reads open. Reaching it is a hike of over four miles.
Four miles and change separate it from the closest road, which is unnamed in the record, on national forest ground at middling elevation. This is deep snow country, close to thirteen feet a winter, and precipitation is on the wetter side.
Boundary Creek Campground is the listed camp, about eight miles away. No best months are given. With no temperature on file, you have no way of knowing from here if the water is safe to touch, so test it. Thirteen feet of snow in a season means a short window for a walk in. Nothing on file bars entry.
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 Sheepeater Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 603 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 59% 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 Sheepeater Hot Springs is alkaline (pH 9.5).
Overview Boundary Creek Campground is located at the edge of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, adjacent to the boat launch for the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho. The site generally provides overnight camping for boaters waiting to launch the next day on their permit to float the Middle Fork. Of the 15 campsites, 5 can be reserved during the high-use season (June 15-Aug. 15); the remaining 10 are first-come, first-served. Outside of those dates, all 15 sites are first-...
Springs Near Sheepeater Hot Springs
Alkaline Springs (pH ~9.5)
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