Buffalo Valley 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.
Buffalo Valley Hot Springs is a scalding spring on BLM ground in Lander County, Nevada, twenty-seven miles from Battle Mountain. Water comes out hot enough to cook with. Access is open, managed by the Mount Lewis Field Office. A 1978 sample came back a touch acidic, with iron among its minerals.
A third of a mile on foot from the road. Basin floor at middling elevation, dry through summer, twenty-five inches of snow through the winter. The parcel is ordinary public land with no added designation. The record describes no pool, no structure, nothing beyond the thermal point itself.
Winter is what the file recommends. The source water will burn on contact; test anything before touching it and keep children back. Access is open. Camping and fees go unmentioned. The only chemistry is from 1978. If a cooler pool exists, the file does not mention it, so do not count on 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 Buffalo Valley Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Open ground
- Flat, open ground all around.
- Highest ground nearby
- Level with the spring
- Within a quarter mile
A slice through the ground from south to north, 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 13% 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 Buffalo Valley Hot Springs is neutral (pH 6.8). It is notably rich in sodium (supports circulation and skin hydration).