Unnamed Thermal Spring
The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
This nameless spring sits in Cibola County about 17 miles from Laguna. The water is barely warm, under seventy degrees on the last reading. Nobody would call that a soak. It lies a stone's throw from a road the record calls Cochiti. No land owner or access status is recorded, so what you have is a dot on the map with a temperature attached.
Low desert mesa country at around 5,500 feet, dry, with eight inches of moisture in a typical year and a light dusting of snow. The road named Cochiti runs within two hundred feet. Whose land the spring is on is a blank in the record, as is any right to walk to it. No campground is listed anywhere near.
The one water sample dates to November 1963 and found near-neutral water with iron in it. Go in the cold months. Confirm access before stopping, since ownership is unknown. No fee appears. The USGS keeps this spot on its books as a numbered site, and that is the extent of the paperwork.
USGS hasn't flown a detailed laser scan here yet, so this view comes from aerial photos and older elevation data.
- Setting
- Gentle slope
- The ground tilts gently up to the east.
- 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 about 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 25% 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 This spring is slightly alkaline (pH 7.3). 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).
this spring sits at 5,557 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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