Morgan 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.
Water at Morgan Hot Spring is hot enough to cook with. The spring is in Plumas County, sixteen miles or so from Chester. Scalding, with no owner on record and no access status. No photo either. The interest is geological; nobody soaks in water like this at the source, and the record has no word on any cooled pool nearby.
A tenth of a mile on foot from the nearest road, which is unnamed here. Elevation is under five thousand feet in wet mountain country where snow piles high in winter. Hole-in-the-Ground, the campground listed, is between five and six miles away. Land unit is blank, and so is owner, which leaves the question of who controls the ground open.
Winter rates as best in the record, and the snowfall makes that doubtful; confirm access by road before counting on it. The water scalds. Keep hands and dogs out. Hole-in-the-Ground is the camping option on file. Nobody is listed as owner, so look for signs.
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 Morgan Hot Spring.
- Setting
- Gentle slope
- The ground tilts gently up to the west.
- Highest ground nearby
- 239 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the west
A slice through the ground from west to east, 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 60% 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.
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.
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