Gamma 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.
Gamma Hot Springs is a remote hot spring deep in the Mt. Baker National Forest in Snohomish County, Washington, about twenty-six miles from Darrington. The water on file is hot enough to scald, right at the top of the hot range. Public access is open, but reaching it is a backcountry trip. OpenStreetMap carries it under the same name.
The nearest road is Suiattle River Road, almost nine miles away, and everything past that is on foot through national forest. Mid-elevation Cascades, average temperature in the mid thirties, snowfall in the hundreds of inches, heavy rain. Sulphur Creek Campground is the closest camping on record, about nine miles out.
Winter months score best on the record; how that squares with hundreds of inches of snow on a nine-mile approach is something to work out before you go. The water will burn at the temperature on file. Open Forest Service land, no fee listed. Chemistry has never been sampled that the record shows.
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 Gamma Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 904 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southeast
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 47% 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.
Overview Sulphur Creek Campground is a primitive site in a beautiful forest along the banks of the scenic Suiattle River and Sulpher Creek. It is a remote haven set amongst towering old growth Douglas fir trees in the Mt. Baker-Snoquamie National Forest. Hikers frequently camp here to explore the many trails surrounding the facility. It has moderate, enjoyable summer temperatures throughout the camping season.Recreation The biggest draw to Sulphur Creek Campground is hiking. The well-known...
Gamma Hot Springs sits at 5,397 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 22% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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