Moapa Warm Springs
Moapa Warm Springs lies inside the Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Clark County, a few miles from Moapa Town. The water is warm, right at the edge of soaking temperature. Access is recorded as restricted, which on a refuge run by the US Fish and Wildlife Service is the detail that matters most.
West Warm Springs Road comes within a few hundred feet of the water. This is low desert, well under two thousand feet, with summers that average hot and a year's rain of about six inches. Snow is almost unheard of. The land designation is National Wildlife Refuge, federal ground. A 2010 sample found the water close to neutral with a moderate mineral load.
Access is restricted. Do not plan on soaking; confirm with the refuge what visitors are allowed to do. The record names December through February, the cool months, and they are the only comfortable time to be out in this heat. No campground or fee is listed, and the nearest town is a few miles back.
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 Moapa Warm 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 southwest.
- Highest ground nearby
- 136 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southwest
A slice through the ground from northwest to southeast, 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 58% 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 Moapa Warm Springs is neutral (pH 7.1) with 597 mg/L total dissolved solids.
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Moapa Warm Springs is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. Bring sun protection for exposed soaking.
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