Lackawanna 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.
On the outskirts of Ely, barely over a mile from town, Lackawanna Hot Springs comes out at soaking temperature. That is body-warm water, comfortable to sit in if there is anywhere to sit, which nobody has recorded. It lies in White Pine County at over six thousand feet. Public access has not been documented.
Bothwick Road passes within two hundred feet of the spring. This is high basin country, cold for much of the year. Ely averages under fifty degrees and gets close to four feet of snow, so expect white ground through the winter months. Land ownership for the site is not listed, and neither is any managing agency.
Winter is the listed season, and with water this warm it makes sense, provided the road is plowed. Ward Mountain Campground at Murray Summit is the camping option on file, roughly seven miles off. Nothing says who owns the ground or whether the public is welcome, so ask in Ely before walking down to it.
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 Lackawanna Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Gentle slope
- The ground tilts gently up to the west.
- Highest ground nearby
- 227 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 63% 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.
Overview Ward Mountain Recreation Area and Campground sits in the shadow of its namesake, just 10 miles southwest from the city of Ely, in eastern Nevada. It sits at an elevation of 7,400 feet. Many trails are available for hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding. Recreation Ward Mountain and the surrounding area offers miles of trails for hiking, mountain biking and horseback riding. Many of the trails offer scenic views of the surrounding high desert terrain. Facilities This campgr...
Lackawanna Hot Springs sits at 6,300 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 25% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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