Austin Hot Springs
Austin Hot Springs in Clackamas County, Oregon, is among the hottest sources in the state's records, with water that scalds on contact. Nobody should be thinking of this as a soak at source temperature. Mount Hood Village is the town listed nearest. No land owner or public access status is on file, so who controls the ground here and what they allow is an open question.
The spring lies along the Clackamas River Road, about a hundred yards off the pavement, at low elevation. Rain is the defining feature of the climate, sixty inches a year, and the winters still manage to drop a good deal of snow. A campground listed only as AAA campground group is under three miles away.
December through February are the months the record favors. Source water this hot will burn skin in seconds, so keep hands and feet out of the outflow until you find where it has cooled, if it does. The water sample on file dates to 2002 and shows very high dissolved solids with sulfate. Access rights here are unrecorded; find out before you go.
USGS hasn't flown a detailed laser scan here yet, so this view comes from aerial photos and older elevation data.
The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 544 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 26% 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 Austin Hot Springs contains 1144 mg/L total dissolved solids. It is notably rich in total dissolved solids (higher mineral concentration for therapeutic soaking).
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Austin Hot Springs is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water is dangerously hot, so bring water shoes and test pools carefully.
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