(Upper) Frisco 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.
Upper Frisco is a named soaking spring in the Gila National Forest, Catron County, New Mexico, something under nine miles out of Reserve. The water comes up at roughly body temperature, a long warm sit on a cool day. The ground is Forest Service and open to anyone. The name carries a parenthetical Upper, and the water is strongly alkaline, enough that it will feel slick on the skin.
Park on Forest Road 35 and walk a bit over half a mile. That is the whole approach on record. The forest here is mid-elevation for western New Mexico, dry most of the year, with winters that put down some snow, seventeen inches in an average season. The record does not say if the forest road stays open through that.
The file favors the three winter months. Apache Creek Campground is the nearest camping the file gives, about ten miles away. The chemistry comes from a 1958 survey and came back very alkaline, so take the pH as old and the slick feel as likely. No fee shows. Body-temperature water will not burn anyone.
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 (Upper) Frisco Hot Spring.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 490 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the southwest
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 55% 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 (Upper) Frisco Hot Spring is alkaline (pH 9.7).
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This is a nice quiet undeveloped campground amongst ponderosa pines and abundant wildlife.Apache Creek Campground is in the northwest region of the forest. There are plenty of trees to provide shade and this is a very clean campground.
(Upper) Frisco Hot Spring sits at 6,480 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 26% stronger than at sea level, so bring sunscreen and drink more water than you normally would.
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(Upper) Frisco Hot Spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear.
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