Benton Hot Springs
Benton Hot Springs is a hot spring at the old settlement of the same name, high and dry at over five and a half thousand feet, a little under thirty miles from Dixon Lane-Meadow Creek. The record files it under Inyo County while Wikipedia places it in Mono County. The water is hot, hotter than a body can take unmixed. Owner and access are blank fields; Wikipedia says a town grew up around the springs.
Roadside, a few hundred feet off an unnamed road, in high and dry country where winter snow runs close to forty inches against around ten inches of rain. Tuff Campground, eighteen miles away, is the camping the record lists. Owner and unit are both unnamed in the record. Yearly temperatures average in the low fifties, which at this elevation means real winters.
Winter is the rated window, though nearly forty inches of snow makes that a fair-weather claim; check the road. The water is hot enough to burn, so check it with a hand before anything else. Tuff Campground is the nearest stay, as noted. No fee or access status is recorded.
Wikipedia records that the town of Benton, also called Old Benton and Hot Springs, grew up around these springs. It places them three miles west-southwest of present Benton and about thirty miles north-northwest of Bishop, in Mono County, and counts them as part of the Benton census-designated place. The record on this page lists Inyo County instead; the two sources disagree.
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 Benton Hot Springs.
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
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the northwest.
- Highest ground nearby
- 273 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northwest
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 71% 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 Tuff Campground is situated along Rock Creek in the scenic Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. It is convenient to Tom's Place and U.S. Highway 395. At an elevation of 7,000 ft., it is lower than many of the region's campgrounds and thus frequently one of the first campgrounds to open in the spring. Popular activities include hiking, fishing, wildlife viewing and viewing the area's volcanic rock formations. Opening and closing dates for the season are dependent on weather. The c...
Benton Hot Springs sits at 5,640 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 23% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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Benton Hot Springs is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water runs hot, so extra hydration is key.
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