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 lies in La Plata County, within San Juan National Forest, listed as open, about fourteen miles from Bayfield. no temperature is on record, and so is the chemistry block, so nothing here confirms it is warm enough to sit in. The nearest road in the record is First Fork Road. Wikipedia has an article, though no extract made it into the record.
A short walk of about eight tenths of a mile from First Fork Road. The forest here is at nearly eight thousand feet, with snow near seven feet a year and moderate rain. The land designation is national forest, the owner the Forest Service. Ute Campground is roughly eight miles off, the one camp the record lists.
Access is open, Forest Service ground, and the record shows no fee. Best-months data: none. With no temperature logged, treat the hot in the name as unverified. Winter snowfall is heavy enough that a cold-season approach means snow. Camping at Ute Campground, eight miles.
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
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the north.
- Highest ground nearby
- 137 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the north
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 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 7,799 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 31% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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