Pistol Creek Hot Springs

Pistol Creek Hot Springs is a documented thermal spring on Pistol Creek, a tributary of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, deep inside the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in Valley County. It exists in the federal record as an entry in the USGS thermal springs inventory, which plots it at 115°F where Little Pistol Creek meets Pistol Creek, about three miles up the drainage from the river. Unlike better-known Idaho springs, it has no GNIS spring record, no guidebook coverage, and no photograph in any source we could find.

What it does have, as of 2025, is a first-hand sighting: a wilderness trek down the Pistol Creek Trail that year passed rock-lined pools on the creek. That is the whole of the soaking record: pools seen in passing, never described, never measured. Treat this page as documentation of a real inventoried spring on a real wilderness trail, and any soak there as a possibility for someone already making the trek, not as a destination to plan a trip around.

Soak Stats

Place Information

Location, Map & Directions

No road reaches the Pistol Creek drainage bottom, so every approach is earned. From the west, the Cascade Ranger District directs visitors to access the main stem of Pistol Creek inside the wilderness via Snowshoe Summit, using National Forest roads 447 and 447E from Landmark. From the Snowshoe Summit trailhead at 7,997 feet, the Pistol Creek Trail runs the full length of the creek, about 21 trail miles down to the Middle Fork, and the spring lies a few miles above the creek’s mouth, most of the way down that trail. A Treasure Valley Back Country Horsemen trailhead sheet covers the Snowshoe Summit start, and the trail is actively maintained: Idaho Trails Association volunteers maintained 11 miles of it and cleared 129 logs in a 2012 project, and the 2025 trek found it freshly maintained again, with cut logs and repaired tread, though chest-high brush in the wet areas.

From the east, the approach is a permitted Middle Fork float to Pistol Creek Camp at river mile 21.4, then a hike of roughly three miles up Pistol Creek to the Little Pistol Creek junction. The land at the creek’s mouth is the private Pistol Creek Ranch inholding; stay on the trail and respect private land there.

The Soaking Experience

Honest expectations are the whole point of this listing. The federal inventory says a 115°F spring rises where Little Pistol Creek meets Pistol Creek. The only person on record as having laid eyes on the water is the author of a 2025 wilderness trek account, who passed rock-lined pools on the creek in a drainage the account describes as heavily burned. That account gives no pool count, no sizes, no depths, and no temperatures, and no photograph of the spring exists in any source consulted.

So this listing will not describe a soak it cannot document. If you are already trekking the Pistol Creek Trail, watch for the pools near the Little Pistol Creek junction, and if you find them, test the water carefully before getting in: the only temperature on record is the 115°F source, which is hot enough to scald undiluted, and nobody has published what the pools themselves run. What the trip reliably offers is the corridor itself: 21 miles of maintained trail down a wild Middle Fork tributary that almost nobody walks end to end.

Fees, Hours & Reservations

No fee, permit, hours, or reservation requirement for trail access was found in any source consulted. The river approach is different: floating the Middle Fork of the Salmon River requires a permit, administered through the Middle Fork Ranger District permit system. Wilderness regulations apply throughout the drainage.

Facilities, Lodging & Nearby

There is nothing at the spring: no toilet, no water, no developed campsite, nothing built beyond the rock lining reported in 2025. This is a multi-day backpack or a float trip, and parties camp along the way; Pistol Creek Camp at river mile 21.4 is the named river camp at the creek’s mouth. The private Pistol Creek Ranch inholding also sits at the mouth, roughly three miles east of the spring, and is not a facility for spring visitors. The nearest road access and services are back at the Snowshoe Summit approach from Landmark.

History

Pistol Creek Hot Springs has the thinnest written record of any spring on this site. It enters the literature through the federal thermal surveys: the USGS thermal springs inventory of the United States carries it at 115°F on the Greyhound Ridge quadrangle, and this site’s own earlier USGS GPS page carried the identical entry, which is how the name survived here. It was never given a GNIS spring record, and no guidebook, HotSpringsGuy included, has covered it.

The trail past it has its own quieter history of care: a 2012 Idaho Trails Association volunteer project maintained 11 miles of the Pistol Creek Trail and cleared 129 logs, and a trail crew had been through again the week before the 2025 trek passed the pools. Why Pistol Creek carries its name is not recorded in the sources consulted.

Safety & Health

Distance is the safety story. The spring sits most of the way down a 21-mile wilderness trail, or up a creek from a permitted river corridor, in country with no services and no guarantee of cell coverage. The 2025 account describes a heavily burned drainage, so expect downfall, snags, and brush along the creek, and conditions that change between seasons and trail crews.

Carry the map (the Artillery Dome 7.5-minute quadrangle covers the spring), tell someone your route and return time, and plan water and weather for a multi-day trip, not a day hike. At the spring itself, treat the water as untested: the source is recorded at 115°F, hot enough to scald, and no pool temperature has ever been published. Check any pool with a hand or a thermometer before getting in, every time.

Best Time to Visit

No season is documented for the spring or its pools. Access sets the calendar: the trailhead sits at 7,997 feet, so the trail approach belongs to the snow-free months, and the river approach follows the permitted Middle Fork float season, late spring through fall. Beyond that, the honest answer is that nobody has published when, or whether, the pools are at their best.

Nearby Hot Springs

The Middle Fork corridor holds one of Idaho’s classic wilderness soaks a short float from Pistol Creek’s mouth. Sheepeater Hot Springs, about six miles from the Pistol Creek inventory point, is a terrace of pools above the river that floaters reach at mile 13, and Trail Flat Hot Springs is a riverside soak farther down the same corridor. Both are reached the way Pistol Creek is, by trail or by permitted float. More East-Central Idaho hot springs →