Squaw Baths
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Squaw Baths sits in Modoc County in the far northeast corner of California, about thirty miles from Alturas. The water comes up bath-warm, the kind of heat you could sit in without flinching. Surprise Valley Road passes within a few dozen paces, so reaching it means a pull-over and a short stroll. Who owns the ground is missing from the record, and so is any note on public access, so treat the spot as unverified until you have asked around.
High desert at around 4,500 feet. Winters are cold and drop a decent amount of snow, sixty inches in an ordinary year, and precipitation is modest overall. The spring is a stone's throw from Surprise Valley Road. No land manager and no designation are attached to this point. Patterson Guard Station, the nearest listed campground, is roughly six and a half miles away.
Our data favors December through February, which is also when snow is on the ground here, so check the road before you drive out. Access is roadside. Camping is at Patterson Guard Station, six or so miles off. Nobody has recorded a fee or an owner, and access status is blank too. Confirm those before you count on soaking.
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 Squaw Baths.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the southwest.
- Highest ground nearby
- 540 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southwest
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 88% 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 *Altitude is 7,080 feet above sea level* Set on the edge of a meadow surrounded by Aspen, Fir and Pine trees, Patterson Guard Station has stood since 1921. It served the Modoc National Forest as a fully staffed fire office and guard station until 1981. Just a few footsteps from the Summit Trail and one-quarter mile from the wilderness boundary, Patterson Guard Station can be your basecamp for trips into the South Warner Wilderness or the perfect place to disconnect and relax. The...
Squaw Baths is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear.
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