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.
Bureau of Land Management ground in Valencia County holds this warm spring, recorded only as Spring, about 17 miles from Belen. It is public land and access is open. The water is warm to the hand, well short of hot. What stands out is the chemistry: a 1941 sample found the water loaded with dissolved solids, many times saltier than drinking water, with iron among the minerals.
Dry basin country a little under 5,500 feet, with light winter snow and less than a foot of precipitation most years. The spring is a hundred yards or so from the closest road, within the Rio Puerco Field Office. No road name is given. No campground appears on file within range, and nothing describes the outlet.
Cold months are the good ones. Access is a short walk and no fee is recorded. The salinity reading is the thing to know before you dip a hand in: that much dissolved mineral makes for heavy, brackish water, and the sample dates to the early 1940s, so current conditions may differ. The USGS assigned it a site number, which is how it ended up listed 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 Spring.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the south.
- Highest ground nearby
- 406 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 31% 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 Spring contains 13600 mg/L total dissolved solids. It is notably rich in calcium (may support bone density and joint health), magnesium (known for muscle relaxation and stress relief), and sodium (supports circulation and skin hydration).
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Spring sits at 5,460 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 22% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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Spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear.
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