Slate 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.
Slate Creek Hot Spring belongs to the Challis National Forest, in Custer County about thirty miles from Challis. It is hot, comfortably over soaking range, with some iron and moderate dissolved solids in the 1982 sample. No restriction on access is recorded. The spring sits high, over seven thousand feet.
A short walk, about a third of a mile, from an unnamed road. This is high country; the yearly average is in the high thirties and snow comes to around eight feet. The climate figures say cold and fairly dry. The Forest Service holds the land.
Ten miles to Pole Flat Campground, the nearest camp on the books. Winter months are given as best, and eight feet of snow at that altitude means the approach road is the thing to check. Hot enough to burn at the source, so let it cool or find where it already has. The 1982 chemistry reading noted iron, and the water is mildly alkaline.
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 Slate Creek Hot Spring.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 896 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the south
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 twice the US average of 65. It's higher than at 75% 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 Slate Creek Hot Spring is alkaline (pH 8.8) with 352 mg/L total dissolved solids.
This campground is away from the main road and up the hill overlooking the river and the dredge ponds. Campsites include picnic tables tent pads fire rings with cooking grills. Campground amenities include a vault toilet and drinking water. Sites accommodate trailers and motorhomes up to 32 feet long.
Slate Creek Hot Spring sits at 7,020 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 28% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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