Rabbit Creek Group
Rabbit Creek Group is a cluster of thermal springs beside the Grand Loop Road in Yellowstone, Gallatin County. Near-boiling water. You could almost see it from a car window, since the record puts it a tenth of a mile from the road. West Yellowstone is the town listed as nearest. Open park land, and the USGS has a site record for it.
A short walk, a few hundred feet at most, separates the road from the springs. Elevation is middling for the park, around 7,300 feet. This corner of Yellowstone gets a bit more snow than the Norris side, roughly thirteen feet a year, and is a little wetter overall. National Park Service land, protected as national park.
Near-boiling water, so treat the ground around it as unsafe and stay on whatever path exists. Winter is the season the record favors, strange as that is with the snow here, so a summer visit off the Grand Loop Road is the realistic version. Big Springs group area in Island Park is the camp on record, twenty-one miles out. No fee on file.
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 Rabbit Creek Group.
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 south.
- Highest ground nearby
- 156 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the south
A slice through the ground from north to south, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's about twice the US average of 65. It's higher than at 82% 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...
Rabbit Creek Group sits at 7,284 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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Rabbit Creek Group 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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