Vaughn 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.
Vaughn Hot Spring comes out above 150 degrees, scalding, on Boise National Forest ground in Boise County about fourteen miles from Idaho City. A few hundred feet of walking from Middle Fork Road gets you there. Access is open. The source water will burn. OpenStreetMap lists it under this name and so does the USGS.
About 3,700 feet, with roughly ten feet of snow and thirty inches of precipitation; annual temperatures average close to fifty. Middle Fork Road passes a few hundred feet away. Forest Service holding, designation National Forest and nothing finer. Snow closes the approach for a good part of the year, though the record does not say when the road opens.
December through February are flagged as best. Ninemeyer Campground is close, under one and a half miles off. Chemistry was never sampled, though the USGS does track it as a site. Source water this hot burns on contact; any soak depends on a cooled pool the record does not confirm.
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 Vaughn Hot Spring.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the south.
- Highest ground nearby
- 282 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the south
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 88% 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:Due to a wildfire, there are no amenities at the campground. Currently there are no developed campfire rings therefore when Stage 1 fire restrictions area in effect, no fires are permitted.A stay at Ninemeyer Campground enables guests to enjoy all the beauty and recreation offered along the (Middle Fork Boise River Road) Forest Service (FS) Road 268. Weather is usually good from mid-May through late September and is easily accessible by car in good weather, although the road is some...
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