Warm Spring
Warm Spring, in Yellowstone National Park, is a thermal point off South Rim Drive, under a mile from the road. The record calls it warm without a measured temperature. Open public access on National Park Service land. It is a named feature, and that is close to the whole of what is recorded about it.
Yellowstone plateau at around 7,700 feet. Short walk of 0.8 miles from South Rim Drive. Snow of 135 inches a year and a cold mean, about 34 degrees. Park land all around.
No best months are on file. Tower Fall Campground is thirteen miles off. No temperature on record, so the word warm in the name is all you have. Park rules on thermal areas apply. The Wikipedia link attached is the general article on hot springs, not this one.
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 Warm 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
- Gentle slope
- The ground tilts gently up to the northwest.
- Highest ground nearby
- 141 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northwest
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.
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 19°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 83% 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...
Warm Spring sits at 7,748 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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Warm Spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. Cold air temperatures make a changing robe or warm layers essential.
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