Blue Joint Hot Spring 1
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Blue Joint Hot Spring 1 is one of two mapped points of the same name in Ravalli County, Montana, inside Bitterroot National Forest, forty miles from Hamilton. Warm water, somewhat under body temperature, on Forest Service land that is open to the public. No one has sampled it, so temperature is the lone measurement there is.
A walk of about four hundred feet from an unnamed road. This is deep in the Bitterroot, high country, in a drainage that collects over eleven feet of snow most winters and a good deal of rain besides. Fales Flat Campground is a few miles away, the only camping in the file for this spot. No fee has been recorded.
The listed months are the three winter ones, and with that snow you would want to know the road is open first. Forest Service ground, open access. Point number 2, the other Blue Joint spring, sits closer to the road and a bit lower down. Expect warm water, under body heat.
OpenStreetMap records the site under the name Blue Joint Hot Springs, plural, which covers both mapped points.
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 Blue Joint Hot Spring 1.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 608 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the north
A slice through the ground from southwest to northeast, 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 28% 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.
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Overview Fales Flat Campground is a group facility on Nez Perce Fork of the Bitterroot River. It is also well equipped for equestrian campers. The campground provides access to a variety of hiking and horseback riding trails in the area, as well as a variety of historic sites that denote the presence of the Nez Perce many years ago.Recreation Fly fishing and wading in the Nez Perce Fork, which runs alongside the campground, are also popular activities. A variety of trails and unimproved road...
Blue Joint Hot Spring 1 is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. Cold air temperatures make a changing robe or warm layers essential.
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