Springs (Hot)
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Springs (Hot) is the USGS label for this group about four miles from Alturas, on Bureau of Land Management ground administered by the Black Rock Field Office. The water is hot, well above what skin tolerates for long, and access is open. A 1980 sample measured modest dissolved solids. The record files the site under Modoc County.
A walk of roughly a thousand feet separates the springs from a road the record leaves nameless. The ground is open public land, designated as such and nothing fancier. Winters here bring a couple of feet of snow and the year stays fairly dry, around ten inches of moisture. Elevation is middling for the region.
The record favors December through February. At this temperature the water will scald if you get into it at the source, so test any pool and look for where it has cooled. Open access, short walk. Nobody charges a fee that the record knows of, and no campground is listed. The only chemistry is a single total dissolved solids figure from 1980, so anything else about the water is unmeasured.
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 Springs (Hot).
- Setting
- Open ground
- Flat, open ground all around.
- Highest ground nearby
- 9 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northwest
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 twice the US average of 65. It's higher than at 69% 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 Springs (Hot) contains 237 mg/L total dissolved solids.
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Springs (Hot) is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water runs hot, so extra hydration is key.
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