Unnamed Thermal 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.
Fifteen miles or so from Battle Mountain in Lander County, an unnamed hot spring on Mount Lewis Field Office land puts out water hot enough to scald on contact. The BLM lists it open. It sits higher than the valley floors around it, which you will feel in the winter temperatures. No water chemistry was ever taken here, only the temperature, and the record has no USGS site number for it.
Under a hundred yards from a road that goes unnamed. Elevation is high enough for real winters: around three feet of snow in a normal season, and a yearly average temperature below fifty. Dry otherwise. Public land with no designation past that, and no camping on file.
Midwinter ranks highest on the record, and that will mean snow on the ground at this elevation and possibly a road that nobody plows. Scalding water. Stay out of the source entirely and watch your footing near it. No fee or camping is on file. Check current access with the Mount Lewis office, since the only access note is a single word, open.
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 this spring.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the south.
- Highest ground nearby
- 455 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the south
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 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.
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this spring sits at 6,119 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 24% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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this spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water is dangerously hot, so bring water shoes and test pools carefully.
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