Wine Cup Ranch Springs
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Ranch is right there in the name, and that is the first thing to weigh about Wine Cup Ranch Springs, which lie in Elko County some twenty five miles out of Wells. Nothing in the record says who owns the land or who may enter. The water is hot, measured at 138 degrees, a couple of degrees shy of the line where it would be called scalding. Elevation was never logged.
A fifth of a mile on foot separates the springs from the nearest road, and that road has no name on file. Two and a half feet of snow is a typical winter, with a dry year overall. No campground shows up anywhere near. What the ground looks like between the road and the water is not described, so plan for open range and be pleasantly surprised if it is easier.
The cold months, January first and then December and February, are the ranked favorites. Water this hot will burn if you go in without checking. Find the cool edge first. Since ownership and permission are both unrecorded, the sensible move is to ask in Wells before driving out, and to turn around at a locked gate.
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 Wine Cup Ranch Springs.
- Setting
- Open ground
- Flat, open ground all around.
- Highest ground nearby
- 16 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the south
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 about 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 33% 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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Wine Cup Ranch Springs is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water runs hot, so extra hydration is key.
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