Carson Hot Springs
Carson Hot Springs sits at the edge of Carson City, under three miles from town, in Eagle Valley. No hot spring in the valley is bigger. It pushes around sixty gallons a minute, hot enough that the water has to be cooled before anybody climbs in, and the pools on site are filled from it. There's no owner named anywhere and no word on public access, so check the arrangement before going.
Old Hot Springs Road runs right past it, within about twenty-five feet. The site sits at forty-seven hundred feet, where winters drop about five feet of snow and the year's precipitation is eighteen inches. The Mount Rose campground, about eleven miles off, is the nearest camping in the record.
The record puts December through February at the top. Source water is far too hot to get into, so the soak is whatever the pools offer, and those are not described here; ask on site about hours and cost. No fee is recorded.
Wikipedia describes Carson Hot Springs as the largest hot spring in the Eagle Valley, discharging geothermally heated groundwater at roughly sixty gallons a minute. The water is said to originate more than six miles below the surface. Pools at the site are filled with water pumped from the spring.
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 Carson 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
- Gentle slope
- The ground tilts gently up to the north.
- Highest ground nearby
- 48 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the north
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 about twice the US average of 65. It's higher than at 82% 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 Mount Rose Campground is conveniently located between Reno and Lake Tahoe just off scenic Mount Rose Highway. Visitors love the campground for its proximity to excellent hiking trails and recreational opportunities at Lake Tahoe.Recreation Hiking is the most popular pastime at Mount Rose. Several trails, including the Tahoe Meadows, Tahoe Rim, Mount Rose Wilderness and Mount Rose Summit Trails, begin very close to the campground.Facilities Mount Rose contains single and double-family...
Carson Hot Springs is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water runs hot, so extra hydration is key.
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