Hot Creek Ranch Hot Spring
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Hot Creek Ranch Hot Spring is scalding water in a remote corner of Nye County, about 56 miles from Tonopah. The water comes up far past the point of safe touch. Nothing is recorded about ownership or public access. The USGS has a site here and a water sample from the late 1960s.
A short walk, under two hundred yards, off a road the record leaves unnamed. Upland basin country, dry, with a modest snowpack in winter. The 1968 sample is the only chemistry: moderate dissolved solids, mildly alkaline. No campground is listed anywhere near. No land unit. No second name or photo. Tonopah is the nearest town, and it is a long way.
December through February are listed. This water scalds on contact, and the heat at the source leaves no margin. Access is a blank; find out who holds the land before you drive out this far. The temperature and sample are old, from the late 1960s.
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 Hot Creek Ranch Hot Spring.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 358 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southwest
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 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 44% 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 Hot Creek Ranch Hot Spring is slightly alkaline (pH 8.1) with 620 mg/L total dissolved solids.
Hot Creek Ranch Hot Spring sits at 5,673 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 23% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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Springs Near Hot Creek Ranch Hot Spring
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Slightly Alkaline Springs (pH ~8.1)
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