West Pinto Hot 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.
West Pinto Hot Spring is sixty-plus miles from Winnemucca in Humboldt County, on Black Rock Field Office land, and the water comes out near boiling. Too hot to touch. Access is open. The water analysis dates to 1974 and lists iron. No photograph is on file, and the record gives no second name.
Roadside: the nearest road, unnamed in the record, passes within fifty yards or so. Elevation is around forty-one hundred feet. Dry climate, light snow, open most of the year. Public land with no designation attached. No campground is recorded, and the drive out from Winnemucca is long, so plan fuel and water accordingly.
Winter is the season in the file. Near-boiling water scalds, so stay well back from the source. Roadside, open, no fee noted. The 1974 analysis is half a century old. No camping is listed. Bring everything you need from Winnemucca.
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 West Pinto Hot Spring.
- Setting
- Valley floor
- Gentle slopes rise on both sides.
- Highest ground nearby
- 198 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the south
A slice through the ground from north to south, 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 72% 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 West Pinto Hot Spring is slightly alkaline (pH 7.7). It is notably rich in sodium (supports circulation and skin hydration) and chloride (natural antiseptic with skin health benefits).