Sulphur 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.
One of two Idaho springs on this site called Sulphur Creek Hot Spring, this one is in Valley County about 37 miles from Cascade. No temperature is recorded, only the word hot, so do not plan a soak on the strength of the name. It sits some 350 yards from a road. Land owner and access are not on record.
High country at around 5,700 feet with heavy snow, about 175 inches a year on average, and a year-round mean near forty. Precipitation is a little over thirty inches. The road sits about 350 yards off, though nothing says which road it is or who owns the ground, and no fee is on record.
Best months are not given. Boundary Creek Campground is close, about 1.6 miles away. The only hard data is a USGS water sample from June 1980 showing very alkaline water with no temperature attached. Confirm access and ownership before you go. The USGS assigned it a site number.
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 Sulphur Creek Hot Spring.
- Setting
- Valley floor
- Gentle slopes rise on both sides.
- Highest ground nearby
- 244 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the east
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 78% 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 Sulphur Creek Hot Spring is alkaline (pH 9.9).
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-...
Sulphur Creek Hot Spring sits at 5,740 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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Springs Near Sulphur Creek Hot Spring
Alkaline Springs (pH ~9.9)
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