Silver Star Hot Springs
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Silver Star Hot Springs in Jefferson County, Montana, sixteen miles from Whitehall, produces water hotter than you could put a hand in. It is scalding at the source. The record gives no owner and no access status. A USGS site is linked with chemistry from 1977. Nothing says what, if anything, has been built around it.
Ridge Road is the nearest named road, about a third of a mile away. Call it a short walk. Modest elevation. Snow stays under five feet and rain is light. Hells Canyon Guard Station is the closest camping given, about six miles off. Land unit and designation are blank in the row.
Scalding at the source; do not touch it. December to February is the window listed. Hells Canyon Guard Station is the nearest camping. Access is unrecorded and no owner is named, so find out who owns it before going. The 1977 sample was mildly alkaline, and the temperature figure is from that survey.
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 Silver Star Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the southwest.
- Highest ground nearby
- 178 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southwest
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 62% 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 Silver Star Hot Springs is slightly alkaline (pH 7.6).
Overview Hells Canyon Guard Station is a quaint log cabin located in the Highland Mountains of Montana's Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. It is most often used as a base camp by hunters and hikers. The area is replete with wildlife and provides access to scenic mountain views, as well as plentiful opportunities for recreation. It was originally built in 1906 and used as a line cabin for ranchers before being donated to the Forest Service in 1910. The Forest Service has used the cabin...
Springs Near Silver Star Hot Springs
More Springs Around 163°F
Slightly Alkaline Springs (pH ~7.6)
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