Growler Hot Spring
Growler Hot Spring runs close to boiling. It sits in Plumas County about sixteen miles from Chester, and the water is scalding, far past anything a person could sit in. The record carries no note on who owns the land or on public access, and no land unit is given. A photo exists.
The walk in is short, a few hundred feet off a road the record leaves unnamed. Elevation puts it shy of a mile up, and the climate numbers are wet: heavy snow most winters and plenty of rain the rest of the year. Without a land owner or unit in the row, you cannot tell from here if this is public ground.
Hole-in-the-Ground Campground is roughly six miles away. The months listed as best run December through February, which sits oddly beside the snowfall total, so check road conditions before trusting it. Water this hot will burn skin on contact. Keep dogs and children back from the source. Public access is unrecorded.
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 Growler Hot 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
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the southeast.
- Highest ground nearby
- 349 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southeast
A slice through the ground from northwest to southeast, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's about 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 58% 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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True to its name, Hole-in-the-Ground is tucked away in a steep, tree-covered draw alongside Mill Creek. A developed campground with 13 designated sites, there is a maximum of 8 people per site at this campground. Grills and tables are provided.
Growler Hot Spring 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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