Jackson Valley Mud Springs
Mud is in the name. Jackson Valley Mud Springs, about five miles from Laytonville in Mendocino County, is a warm spring that has been photographed for the record, and that is most of what the record holds. Temperature is tepid, lower than a bath. Owner and access fields are empty, and the name is the only clue to what the water looks like.
The spring is right off the road, under two hundred feet from it, though the record does not give the road a name. Elevation is not recorded. Rain is heavy through the year and snow is rare, which points to a wet, mild climate. No campground appears in the record for this one.
December through February rate highest for timing, and with almost no snow, winter is workable. The water is too cool to burn, and cool enough that a summer visit makes more sense for a dip. Ownership is unknown; look for posting before you leave the road.
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 Jackson Valley Mud 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
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 440 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 twice the US average of 65. It's higher than at 83% 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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