Unnamed Thermal Spring
An unnamed spring on public land managed by the BLM's Ridgecrest Field Office, in Kern County about twenty miles from Inyokern. The water is 80 degrees, which most people would call lukewarm. A USGS site number is tied to it, meaning the agency has it catalogued. Access is open, and a photograph is on file.
A fifth of a mile or so separates the spring from the nearest highway, and the approach is logged as a short walk. Elevation is a touch over three thousand feet. This is dry country, around eight inches of rain a year, with roughly a foot of snow in an ordinary winter. The land designation reads public and nothing more specific.
The record favors the cold months. Chimney Creek Campground is about ten miles away. Access is open and no fee is recorded. Nothing on file about the water chemistry. The temperature could date from an old survey, so confirm on the ground. Eighty degrees will not warm you on a winter morning.
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 this 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
- 124 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 76% 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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Chimney Creek Campground is located within Chimney Peak Recreation Area and is cherry stemmed out of Owens Peak Wilderness. The campground contains 36 sites and is nestled among beautiful pinyon pines, grey pines, and oaks along Chimney Creek at 5,700 feet in elevation. Each site in the campground has a picnic table and fire ring. Potable water is available during the summer months near the very end of the campground loop at site 36. During the summer, days can be warm and dry. The Pacific C...
this spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear.
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