Great Boiling Spring (Gerlach)
Great Boiling Spring near Gerlach lives up to the name. The water comes out a few degrees shy of boiling, two hundred and eight degrees, which is water that kills. It sits in the Black Rock Desert country of Pershing County, with Lovelock the nearest listed town at nearly sixty miles. Wikipedia records it as part of a former private park that has been closed to the public since the 1990s. A 1974 analysis, iron included, is the chemistry on file.
Desert floor here, a shade under four thousand feet, and the road sits about five hundred feet away with no name attached to it. The record itself names no owner, while the Wikipedia account calls the land private property. Rain is scarce and a typical winter drops a foot and a half of snow. Wikipedia also says the surrounding area holds dozens of hot springs and thermal pools.
There is no public access here and there has not been for decades, according to Wikipedia, so the practical advice is to look from the road if you look at all. The water would scald you instantly. Anyone who does come through should do so in the cool months, December through February. No campground or fee is on record. The access status in the record itself is blank, which is consistent with a closed site.
Wikipedia gives the place a name of its own, Great Boiling Spring Park, a former park on private land near Gerlach that has been off-limits to the public since the 1990s. The park sat on top of one of Nevada's most active geothermal areas. The USGS holds a site record for the spring, and the water sample on file was drawn in February 1974.
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 Great Boiling Spring (Gerlach).
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
- Open ground
- Flat, open ground all around.
- Highest ground nearby
- 23 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the west
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 20% 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 Great Boiling Spring (Gerlach) is slightly alkaline (pH 8.1) with 4600 mg/L total dissolved solids. It is notably rich in sodium (supports circulation and skin hydration), sulfate (traditionally used for skin conditions and inflammation), and chloride (natural antiseptic with skin health benefits).
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Great Boiling Spring (Gerlach) is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water is dangerously hot, so bring water shoes and test pools carefully.
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