Hot Springs
A thermal point listed only as Hot Springs, this one lies under a mile from Grand Loop Road, in the central part of Yellowstone National Park. The record calls the water hot and gives no reading. Gallatin County, park land. Public access open. West Yellowstone is about sixteen miles distant.
Under a mile of walking connects the Grand Loop Road to the spring. Elevation: a shade below eight thousand feet. Averaged across the year it is thirty-four degrees. Snow tops twelve feet in a normal year, and precipitation is moderate. Here the ground is National Park Service land with national park designation.
No best-months entry exists for this spring and no temperature has been logged, so the sensible approach is to treat it as an unknown, possibly scalding, thermal feature reached on foot. Camping on record is Tower Fall Campground, about nineteen miles away. Ask the park what is open before you go. Nobody collects a fee here, as far as 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 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.
- Setting
- Gentle slope
- The ground tilts gently up to the southeast.
- Highest ground nearby
- 159 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southeast
A slice through the ground from northwest to southeast, 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 61% 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 Tower Fall Campground—elevation 6,600 feet (2012 m)—is on the north side of the steep, winding, road to Dunraven Pass. The campground is near the Tower General Store and Tower Fall. The Lamar Valley, with spectacular wildlife viewing opportunities, is nearby as are several Day Hikes in the Tower and Northeast Area. Roosevelt Lodge, a short drive from the campground, offers dining and horseback riding. For reservations at the campgrounds managed by Yellowstone National Park Lodges (F...
Hot Springs sits at 7,867 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 31% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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Hot Springs is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. Cold air temperatures make a changing robe or warm layers essential.
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