Queens Laundry
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Queens Laundry is a hot spring in Yellowstone's Gallatin County section, reached by a hike of under two miles. The water on record is hot enough to scald. West Yellowstone is the closest town on file. Public park land, open. The name is the most interesting thing on record, and the record says nothing about where it came from.
The nearest road is not named on file, only that the spring sits about 1.7 miles from it. Moderate elevation for Yellowstone, a bit over 7,200 feet. Winter snowfall is deep, close to twelve feet, and the annual average temperature is in the mid thirties. Park Service ground, national park designation. Nothing on file about terrain between the road and the spring.
Dress for cold even in shoulder season. December through February are listed as the best months, which means skis or snowshoes given the snowfall. Scalding water, so give the edges a wide berth. The closest campground on record is the Big Springs group area over in Island Park, Idaho, about twenty miles away, and no fee is listed for the spring itself.
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 Queens Laundry.
- Setting
- Open ground
- Flat, open ground all around.
- Highest ground nearby
- 24 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southeast
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.
Landsat's thermal camera passed over on a clear winter day, January 31, 2024. This spring's heat shows up from about 440 miles up. The brightest yellow marks the warmest ground, roughly 10°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 2½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 93% 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...
Queens Laundry sits at 7,213 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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Queens Laundry 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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