Moon River 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.
Out in Lincoln County, nearly fifty miles from Pioche, Moon River Spring comes up warm on Bureau of Land Management ground that the record lists as open to the public. The water is soaking warm, comfortable for a long sit. It is a long way from anything.
The spring is a roadside stop inside the Bristlecone Field Office area, under a hundred feet from the track. Which track is not on record. Elevation is middling for Nevada, high desert a bit over five thousand feet, and this is a dry corner of the state. Snow comes lightly, around a foot and a half in a typical winter, and the whole year's precipitation is about seven inches.
Winter rates best here, December into February. You can drive nearly to the water. The BLM lists it as open, with no fee on file. There is a USGS site record for the spring, so the temperature comes from a real measurement, though the date of that reading is not noted. No campground is on file anywhere close, and Pioche is the nearest town of any kind.
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 Moon River Spring.
- Setting
- Open ground
- Flat, open ground all around.
- Highest ground nearby
- 53 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the east
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 40% 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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Moon River Spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear.
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