Black Warrior Group, Shelf Spring
Shelf Spring belongs to the Black Warrior Group of thermal features in Yellowstone National Park, about twelve miles from West Yellowstone. The reading on file is past two hundred degrees, scalding. OpenStreetMap labels the spot Hot Lake. Park Service land, open. Photo on file.
Firehole Lake Drive passes within a few hundred feet, a short walk. High country inside the park, cold year round with heavy snow. The nearest campground on record is the Big Springs group area at Island Park, more than twenty miles off.
Winter months rate best. Water this hot will scald instantly. Stay where the park puts you. No fee is listed. No chemistry sampled, though a USGS site record exists.
Shelf Spring is the name it goes by inside the Black Warrior Group, while OpenStreetMap calls the same spot Hot Lake. The USGS keeps a site number on it.
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 Black Warrior Group, Shelf 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
- Valley floor
- Gentle slopes rise on both sides.
- Highest ground nearby
- 145 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the north
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.
Landsat's thermal camera passed over on a clear winter day, December 3, 2022. This spring's heat shows up from about 440 miles up. The brightest yellow marks the warmest ground, roughly 14°F warmer than the land around it.
Drag to compare. The view is about 2½ miles across, and each thermal pixel covers roughly 300 feet of ground, so individual pools blur into one warm patch.
Thermal: Landsat 8/9 surface temperature, USGS (public domain), via Microsoft Planetary Computer. Aerial: USGS The National Map. More springs seen from space.
That's about twice the US average of 65. It's higher than at 90% 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 Big Springs Group Area is located 22 miles south of West Yellowstone, Montana in beautiful Island Park, Idaho at an approximate elevation of 6,300 feet. Visitors love Island Park for its world-class fishing and outstanding scenery and wildlife viewing opportunities.Recreation Big Springs is the headwaters of Henry's Fork and is one of the largest springs in the country. Henry's Fork is considered one of the best fly-fishing streams in the nation. Fishermen cast for rainbow and brook...
Black Warrior Group, Shelf Spring sits at 7,360 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 29% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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Black Warrior Group, Shelf Spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water is dangerously hot, so bring water shoes and test pools carefully. Cold air temperatures make a changing robe or warm layers essential.
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