Tripp Hot Springs
Tripp Hot Springs sits in La Plata County outside Durango, roughly nine miles from town. The water comes out hot, well above body temperature, in the range people want for a proper soak. Who owns the ground, and what the rules for visiting are, nobody has written down here.
A short walk, five hundred feet or so off the road. The elevation is mid-mountain for Colorado, high enough that winters pile several feet of snow over the season. Rainfall is moderate. The land card lists no owner and no designation, so you will be doing your own checking on where any property line runs.
Winter ranks as the best season here by our climate scoring, with the deep-snow months of December through February on top. Junction Creek Campground is the closest listed camping, close to six miles away. Hot water like this wants a careful hand before you get in. Public access is unrecorded. Treat the spot as unverified until you have confirmed it is open.
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 Tripp 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.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the west.
- Highest ground nearby
- 410 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the west
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 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 57% 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 Junction Creek Campground is located close to Durango, Colo., near the beginning of the Colorado Trail. Visitors enjoy the area for its excellent hiking and biking opportunities in a scenic natural setting.Recreation The Colorado Trail, also known as the Junction Creek Trail, begins nearby and stretches almost 500 miles to Denver as it rises through subalpine forests and alpine meadows above the timberline. Mountain biking is very popular on the Colorado Trail and the Logchute Trail...
Tripp Hot Springs sits at 6,600 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 26% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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Tripp Hot Springs is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water runs hot, so extra hydration is key.
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