Mud Volcanoes
This Mud Volcanoes point sits inside the Imperial Wildlife Area, a state conservation area run by the state fish and wildlife agency, a little over five miles from Niland. Access is marked open. The temperature is described as warm but was never written down as a number, so come to look at it.
Ruddy Road gets you within about four tenths of a mile. The wildlife area occupies low ground below sea level beside the Salton Sea. Very little rain and no snow. Hot for most of the year.
Open access on state conservation land. Wildlife area rules apply; the record does not spell them out. No campground or fee is listed, no best months either. Winter is the sensible time.
The state conservation designation covers this ground as part of the Imperial Wildlife Area. The USGS also tracks the point under its site 331703115344001.
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 Mud Volcanoes.
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
- 6 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southeast
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 63% 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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Mud Volcanoes is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. Bring sun protection for exposed soaking.
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