Hot Well Dunes
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Hot Well Dunes is a hot spring on BLM land in the San Simeon Valley of Graham County, southeast of Safford per Wikipedia, and some twenty two miles from Swift Trail Junction. The record carries no temperature and no chemistry, so the word hot comes only from the name and the Wikipedia line. Access is open. Management sits with the BLM's Safford Field Office.
Roadside: the closest road comes within about two hundred feet and goes unnamed. The valley floor here is dry, with eight inches of rain annually and barely any snow. The yearly average is in the high sixties. Upper Arcadia, about twenty four miles away, is the one camp listed. Public land under the BLM.
No season is recommended. Drive up and step out; the spring is roadside. Open access on BLM ground. Upper Arcadia is the nearest camp on file, a long drive. Fee status is not recorded. With no measured temperature the word hot is unverified here, so check the water before assuming a soak, and do not rule out that it is too hot.
Wikipedia gives Hot Well Dunes a short entry: a hot spring in Arizona's San Simeon Valley, on BLM land southeast of the town of Safford.
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 Hot Well Dunes.
- Setting
- Gentle slope
- The ground tilts gently up to the southeast.
- Highest ground nearby
- 49 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southeast
A slice through the ground from west to east, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's close to the US average of 65. It's higher than at 5% 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 Upper Arcadia sits along Swift Trail in southeastern Arizona, providing an escape from desert heat and a pleasant place to take in the high desert scenery in spring and fall. Visitors enjoy hiking, camping, birding and picnicking. Recreation The campground lies along the Swift Trail Scenic Drive, which takes visitors from the Sonoran Desert at 2,900 feet to alpine meadows and forest on the 9,000+ foot ridges of the Pinaleño Range. Because of its diverse habitat, the area is well-know...
Hot Well Dunes is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. Bring sun protection for exposed soaking.
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