Dos Palmas Spring
Dos Palmas Spring is a warm desert spring on BLM land below sea level in Imperial County, fourteen miles out from Desert Shores. Warm, short of hot. Access is open, and getting there involves a bit of walking from the end of the road.
Dos Palmas Spring Road ends a bit under half a mile from the water, and you walk the rest. The spring lies below sea level in a place that gets roughly three inches of rain annually and has never recorded snow. Average temperatures run high. The BLM manages the land from its Palm Springs/South Coast office.
Best in the cool months, which here means December through February; the yearly average alone tells you summer will be fierce. Cottonwood Group, about sixteen miles away, is the camp the record lists. No fee is recorded, and no chemistry or sample date either. The walk in is under half a mile, across open BLM ground.
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 Dos Palmas Spring.
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
- Open ground
- Flat, open ground all around.
- Highest ground nearby
- 81 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northeast
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.
That's about twice the US average of 65. It's higher than at 77% 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 Download the NPS app prior to visiting the park – trail maps and more! Cottonwood Group Campground is one of the best places in Joshua Tree National Park for stargazing and wildflower viewing. The group campground is part of the main Cottonwood Campground and has three sites that are by reservation only. It is one of three group campgrounds in the park and the only campground that lies in the southern section. To get the most out of your visit Plan Like a Park Ranger Travelers who...
Dos Palmas Spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. Bring sun protection for exposed soaking.
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