Piedra River Hot Springs
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Piedra River Hot Springs sits on San Juan National Forest land in La Plata County, about fifteen miles from Bayfield. Public access is open; the US Forest Service owns the ground. The temperature on file is a comfortable soaking warmth, a few degrees above a hot bath. No fee is on record, and there is no water chemistry in the record.
From First Fork Road the walk in runs roughly a third of a mile. National forest land with no special designation beyond that. Elevation stays under seven thousand feet. Each winter brings snow in quantity, roughly eighty inches, and precipitation over the year is middling. Ute Campground sits around eight miles away and is the nearest camping.
Winter months are listed as best. Getting in means a short walk on open national forest land, with no fee recorded. Temperature is comfortable, below the point where caution is needed. Nothing on file about water chemistry, so you are going on the temperature alone. Check road conditions on First Fork Road in snow season.
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 Piedra River Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 546 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 50% 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.
Overview Ute Campground is located on US Hwy 160 across from Chimney Rock National Monument, 15 miles west of Pagosa Springs, 25 miles east of Bayfield, and 18 miles north of Arbolles, just west of the intersection with Colorado 151. Visitors enjoy quick access to Chimney Rock National Monument entrance and a centralized location to USFS trail systems, lake, and stream fishing. Recreation Ute Campground is the only access to Forest Service land on Haystack Mountain. Hiking views of Chimney R...
Piedra River Hot Springs sits at 6,881 feet above sea level, way above the mile-high mark. You may not feel the altitude strongly, but hot water still dehydrates you faster at elevation. UV is about 28% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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