Whittaker Warm Springs
The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Whittaker Warm Springs is a remote, tepid spring in Lemhi County, nearly forty-seven miles from Salmon, the nearest town on record. The August 1980 reading puts the water well under body heat, warm to the hand and no more. No landowner is listed, and the record holds no public access status. The water is slightly alkaline.
The spring is right at the roadside, under thirty feet from a road that goes unidentified in the record. It sits high, past six thousand feet. Snowfall averages around sixty inches. Precipitation is scant, well under twenty inches a year.
Best months on record fall in winter. Meadow Lake Campground, twelve miles or so out, is the only camping listed. With water this cool there is nothing to fear from the temperature. The distance from Salmon makes it a long drive for a lukewarm spring; confirm access first, since none is recorded.
A USGS site number is attached to the spring, and the 1980 sample on the page is the only measurement on record.
USGS hasn't flown a detailed laser scan here yet, so this view comes from aerial photos and older elevation data.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the west.
- Highest ground nearby
- 323 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the west
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 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 42% 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 Whittaker Warm Springs is slightly alkaline (pH 8.0).
Overview Meadow Lake Campground is located on the Leadore Ranger District of the Salmon-Challis National Forest. This high alpine campground sits at an elevation of 9,160 feet in the Lemhi Mountain Range, 22 miles from Leadore, Idaho.Recreation There's no lack of recreational opportunities around Meadow Lake Campground. The lake is stocked twice a year so the fish are always biting. Fish from the bank or carry your boat down to the lake and try from the water, as there is no boat ramp or boat...
Whittaker Warm Springs sits at 6,310 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 25% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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