Unnamed Thermal 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.
An unnamed thermal point inside the San Jacinto Wildlife Area in Riverside County, about three miles out of Lakeview. The survey that logged it tagged the water as warm without writing down a temperature, so there is no number to go on and nothing to suggest anyone has soaked here. It sits on state conservation land that is open to the public. A dot on the map with a warm tag on it, and little else.
The spring comes up within a few steps of a road that the record leaves unnamed, on low, dry ground well under two thousand feet. State fish and wildlife runs the area as a conservation unit, which is the kind of land that comes with its own rules about where and when you can walk. Rain here is scarce, around a foot a year, and snow amounts to a dusting in a cold winter. Mild winters and hot summers.
No best months are on record and nothing points to a bathing pool, so come for the wildlife area itself and treat the spring as a curiosity. Access is listed as open and roadside. The closest campground on file is Boulder Basin, a twenty-mile drive away. Check current wildlife area hours before heading in, and do not expect a temperature reading because nobody has published one.
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.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the northwest.
- Highest ground nearby
- 354 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northwest
A slice through the ground from north to south, 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 33% 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 Black Mountain Road is is poor condition at this time. A four-wheel drive (4WD) vehicle is recommended with a minimum ground clearance of 6 inches. Drive at your own risk. The San Bernardino National Forest is submitting a proposal to increase fees at various sites across the Forest and is seeking public input. Please visit the https://www.fs.usda.gov/sbnf for more information and to submit comments regarding this proposal.Boulder Basin Campground offers solitude and primitive camp...
this spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. Bring sun protection for exposed soaking.
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