Desert Reef Hot Spring
The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Desert Reef Hot Spring is in Fremont County, Colorado, four-odd miles from Penrose. The record has no temperature for it, so the heat of the water is unknown here; do not take the name as proof you can soak. USGS records include a 1975 sample that came back mildly acidic, iron among the minerals. The file is blank on public access and on who owns the land.
County Road 110 lies a couple hundred feet off, so this is a roadside location. No elevation is recorded. Snow comes to a bit more than two feet over a winter, and rain is light; the yearly mean lands in the low fifties. Nobody has entered a land unit or owner.
no season is on record. Roadside. Mingus Ranch, nearly twenty miles away, is the closest campground listed. No fee recorded. Chemistry: 1975. With no temperature and no access status, treat this as a map point to investigate, and check ownership before you go.
USGS hasn't flown a detailed laser scan here yet, so this view comes from aerial photos and older elevation data.
- Setting
- Valley floor
- Gentle slopes rise on both sides.
- Highest ground nearby
- 110 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 close to the US average of 65. It's higher than at 1% 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.
The water at Desert Reef Hot Spring is slightly acidic (pH 6.3). It is notably rich in calcium (may support bone density and joint health), magnesium (known for muscle relaxation and stress relief), and sulfate (traditionally used for skin conditions and inflammation).
Overview Mingus Ranch is a cabin where guests can step back in time and feel like they're staying on an early 20th century homestead. The cabin was built in 1908 and was operated by the same family for six decades before it became a Forest Service property. In collaboration with the Frontier Pathways Scenic and Historic Byway and the Colorado State Historical Society, the cabin and neighboring barn have been renovated to match their original appearance and filled with period-specific furnitu...
Springs Near Desert Reef Hot Spring
Slightly Acidic Springs (pH ~6.3)
Hike 6 waterfalls near Desert Reef Hot Spring
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