Indian Big 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.
Indian Big Spring is a tepid spring in Eddy County, fifteen miles from Carlsbad in the southeastern corner of the state. Warm only in the loosest sense; the record puts it in the high seventies. USGS measured chloride-rich water here in 1938, and that sample appears to be the last word on it. No access status is on file, and no owner is named either.
A bit over 150 feet from the track, on low desert, and roadside in every sense. The record has no elevation for it. Hot in summer and dry year round, with five inches or so of snow in an average winter. What the water does after it surfaces is not in the record, and the nearest road has no name in our data.
Treat the temperature as history; the reading is close to ninety years old and the spring could have changed or dried since. Who owns the land is unknown. Sunset Reef Campground is the nearest listed, about 23 miles away. Come in the cold months if you come at all.
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 Indian Big Spring.
- Setting
- Valley floor
- Gentle slopes rise on both sides.
- Highest ground nearby
- 258 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the north
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 close to the US average of 65. It's higher than at 1% 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 Indian Big Spring contains 761 mg/L total dissolved solids. It is notably rich in chloride (natural antiseptic with skin health benefits).
Sunset Reef Campground is a reclaimed well pad with 11 developed campsites; five RV spaces and six tent sites. Each site has a shaded picnic table, fire pit and grill for your camping convenience with a vault toilet on site. Visitors can dry camp at this campground for a maximum of five nights for free. If on the hunt for a great place to camp while exploring the two national parks in the area, this is the place to stay! Carlsbad Caverns is a 25-minute drive (14 miles) to the north and Guada...
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