Unnamed Thermal Spring
Under nine miles from Homedale and barely a hundred yards off the road, this unnamed thermal point in Owyhee County is about as easy to reach as BLM springs get. The catch is that the record gives no temperature. It is flagged hot, nothing more. Access is open and the ground is public. A 1991 water sample is on file and it came back strongly alkaline.
The nearest road is unnamed on the record but the spring is only a few hundred feet from it. Bureau of Land Management ground, managed from the Vale Malheur office. Low desert elevation, around 2,700 feet. Dry, with a couple of feet of snow over a typical winter. Slocum Creek Campground is the closest camping listed, roughly a dozen miles away.
There are no best months on file. Open access, no fee recorded. Camp at Slocum Creek if you need a site, about twelve miles off. The analysis from October 1991 lists sodium, calcium, magnesium, chloride and sulfate at a pH well above nine, so this is alkaline water on paper. Without a temperature on record, do not count on a soak.
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 this 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.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 556 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the south
A slice through the ground from south to north, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's close to the US average of 65. It's higher than at 13% 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 This spring is alkaline (pH 9.5).
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Nestled in a side canyon near the mouth of Leslie Gulch, Slocum Creek Campground makes a good base for gulch explorations. Cool off in the waters of nearby Lake Owyhee or hike the Leslie Gulch Area of Critical Environmental Concern. The campground includes nine campsites, eight of which contain some accessible amenities. The low light of early morning and late evening transforms the abutting rock outcrops of Slocum Creek Wilderness Study Area into magnificent fiery wonder.Know Before You GoCa...
this spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear.
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Springs Near This Spring
Alkaline Springs (pH ~9.5)
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