White Dome Geyser, Surprise Pool
Surprise Pool shares its record with White Dome Geyser, over in Yellowstone's Lower Geyser Basin. Firehole Lake Drive runs right alongside, under a hundred yards from the pavement. The reading comes a few degrees shy of 212, so you look and that is all you do. West Yellowstone lies about twelve miles off. Park Service ground, open to anyone.
Roadside. Firehole Lake Drive passes within a couple hundred feet, so reaching it takes almost no walking. The basin floor sits a little above 7,300 feet. Winters are long and deep, close to twelve feet of snow, and the temperature averaged over the year is in the mid thirties. Rain and snowmelt add up to a moderate amount. The Park Service owns and manages the ground.
The record puts the best visiting in midwinter. Find out first if the drive is open then, since snowfall is heavy. The Island Park campground called Big Springs Group Area is the closest camping on file, about 23 miles off. Nothing about this water is safe to touch. Severe burns follow the moment skin meets it. No fee is listed.
Wikipedia describes Surprise Pool as a hot spring pool in the Lower Geyser Basin, near Great Fountain Geyser and A-0 Geyser. The USGS logs the spot under a numbered site.
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 White Dome Geyser, Surprise Pool.
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 southwest.
- Highest ground nearby
- 88 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southwest
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, December 3, 2022. This spring's heat shows up from about 440 miles up. The brightest yellow marks the warmest ground, roughly 15°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...
White Dome Geyser, Surprise Pool sits at 7,308 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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White Dome Geyser, Surprise Pool 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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