Crabtree Hot Springs
Private land, closed to the public. That is the main thing to know about Crabtree Hot Springs, which lies north of Upper Lake in Lake County. The water temperature on record is a comfortable soaking warmth, a touch above a hot bath. The road that gets closest is a Forest Service route marked private access only.
Lake County hill country, wet by California standards, with real rain and a couple of feet of snow most winters. The closest road is Forest Route 17N04, flagged as private access only, and the spring is a fifth of a mile beyond it. Our data gives no elevation. Letts Lake Campground, on public forest land, is some miles distant.
Do not plan a trip. The property is private and Wikipedia records it as closed. If that ever changes, winter is the season the record favors, with the caveat that snow falls here. Letts Lake Campground is the nearest public camping we list. There is no fee on record.
Wikipedia describes Crabtree as a geological phenomenon about 25 miles north of Upper Lake at an elevation of 2,257 feet, on private property and shut to visitors.
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 Crabtree 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 north.
- Highest ground nearby
- 275 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the north
A slice through the ground from south to north, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's about 2½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 97% 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 This location is available on a first-come, first-served basis only. Visitors are required to physically arrive at the campground to purchase and claim a site.Once on-site, you are able to pay for your campsite(s) by scanning a QR code using the Recreation.gov mobile app, and the Scan and Pay feature.In order to utilize Scan & Pay on site, you will need to first download the free Recreation.gov mobile app https://www.recreation.gov/mobile-app prior to your arrival as some remote area...
Crabtree Hot Springs is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear.
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