Preston Springs
The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Preston Springs is a barely warm spring in White Pine County, roughly twenty-six miles from Ely. The water is tepid, a good bit under body temperature, so nobody should drive out expecting heat. No access status or owner is on file. The only chemistry is a 1983 sample, mildly alkaline.
A short walk, a few hundred feet long, from a road the record leaves nameless. Mid-to-high elevation basin with a cool climate, ten inches of precipitation and a snowy winter, close to three feet. Ownership is not listed, and No land unit and designation is on record. There is a USGS record for it.
Winter is the season that comes up best, which is an odd thing to say about water at seventy degrees. In January air it will not warm you much. Ward Mountain Campground sits up at Murray Summit, around twenty miles away. Who owns the ground is not recorded, so check before you walk in. The pH reading goes back to 1983 and nothing newer has come along.
USGS hasn't flown a detailed laser scan here yet, so this view comes from aerial photos and older elevation data.
- Setting
- Open ground
- Flat, open ground all around.
- Highest ground nearby
- 16 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northwest
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 39% 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 Preston Springs is slightly alkaline (pH 7.8).
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...
Preston Springs sits at 5,722 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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