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.
The Custer County Sulphur Creek Hot Spring lies in the Challis National Forest, 42 miles from Challis, and is reached by a hike of about a mile and a quarter from the nearest road. It shares its name with a Valley County spring on this site. Access is open, but no temperature has been recorded here, and without one it cannot be called soakable.
National forest land around 5,800 feet, mountain country with roughly 140 inches of snow most winters and yearly temperatures averaging in the low forties. Precipitation is moderate. The record holds no road name, only the distance. No USGS sample or site number is attached to this one, so there is no chemistry either.
There are no best months on file. Boundary Creek Campground, eleven or twelve miles away, is the nearest camping. Expect a hike in. The spring's temperature and condition are unrecorded, so go ready to find very little, and go in the warm months, when the snow is gone.
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
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 687 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 about twice the US average of 65. It's higher than at 79% 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 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 5,807 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.
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
Springs Near Sulphur Creek Hot Spring
Hike 6 waterfalls near Sulphur Creek Hot Spring
Looking for more outdoor adventures? Explore waterfall hikes near Sulphur Creek Hot Spring, Idaho.