Devils Kitchen
The Devils Kitchen in Lassen Volcanic National Park is a hydrothermal area where the water comes out close to boiling, reached on foot from the Warner Valley side. Plumas County, about fourteen miles from Chester. Scalding water makes this a place to walk through and look at. Access is open and the land belongs to the National Park Service.
A mile and a half of trail leads in from Chester-Warner Valley Road. The basin is high country, and the winters are no joke. Seventeen feet of snow piles up in an average season, with precipitation close to four feet. Road and trail both go under for months. Warner Valley Campground is the closest camp listed, a couple of miles off.
The months on file as best are December through February, which does not square with the snow totals; plan around the snow instead. Keep back from the water; it is scalding. A 1981 sample showed a near-neutral pH and little dissolved mineral for water this hot. Warner Valley Campground sits about two miles off, and park rules apply.
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 Devils Kitchen.
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 southwest.
- Highest ground nearby
- 436 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, January 19, 2025. This spring's heat shows up from about 440 miles up. The brightest yellow marks the warmest ground, roughly 14°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 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 51% 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.
The water at Devils Kitchen is slightly acidic (pH 6.7) with 49 mg/L total dissolved solids.
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Overview Warner Valley campground is a limited development facility in the south eastern area of the park. It has vault toilets and potable water spigots. Numerous trails can be accessed from the campground. Recreation Hiking trails accessible from the campground Facilities Vault toilets - seasonal Natural Features Lassen Volcanic national park is known for its volcanic history, as well as its diversity of plants and animals. It contains 300 active volcanic domes, as well as many hydrotherma...
Devils Kitchen sits at 6,300 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 25% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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Devils Kitchen is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water is dangerously hot, so bring water shoes and test pools carefully.
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