Unnamed Thermal Spring
Hot water, pushing a little past what most people would call comfortable for a soak. This unnamed point sits in Pershing County on BLM ground. The Black Rock office administers it; access is listed open. Nobody ever pulled a water sample, though the USGS still gave the spot a number. Lovelock is the nearest city at sixty-five miles, so nothing about this is close.
The walk in is short, a hundred-odd yards from an unnamed road. Low basin elevation in dry country. Snow rarely amounts to more than a foot, and the year's precipitation is about seven inches. Nothing about camping in the record, and the ground is undesignated public land.
Best months are December through February on the record. Hot water: a careful hand test comes first, and a short soak is about all most people would want at this heat. No fee noted. Confirm access with the Black Rock Field Office before you drive out. There is no chemistry to go on, so the temperature is the only measurement on file.
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.
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
- Open ground
- Flat, open ground all around.
- Highest ground nearby
- 61 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the east
A slice through the ground from west to east, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's close to the US average of 65. It's higher than at 16% 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 is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water runs hot, so extra hydration is key.
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