Luce Hot 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.
Luce Hot Springs comes out of the ground in Harney County hot enough to burn skin on contact. Burns is the nearest town, some forty-four miles away. Who owns the land is not on record, and neither is whether the public can visit. The U.S. Geological Survey carries it as a numbered thermal site, which is most of why it is listed here at all.
The spring lies at moderate desert elevation, under four thousand feet, with a road passing a couple hundred feet away. No name for that road is on file. Ownership is blank too, so assume nothing about fences or gates until you have looked for yourself. Snow in winter is light to moderate. The year as a whole is dry.
Winter gets the recommendation. The water scalds, so the source and everything flowing out of it are off limits to skin. Chukar Park Campground is the nearest listed camping, a bit over twenty miles off. Nothing in the record says if you are allowed in, so confirm that before making the drive.
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 Luce Hot Springs.
- Setting
- Valley floor
- Gentle slopes rise on both sides.
- Highest ground nearby
- 204 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northeast
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 close to the US average of 65. It's higher than at 3% 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.
Let the sounds of the babbling North Fork of the Malheur River lull you to sleep at one of the riverside campsites of Chukar Park Campground. This primitive facility offers 19 campsites, seven of which are situated along the shady, lush riparian vegetation. Popular as a base camp with birders, hunters and fishers as well as those venturing through along nearby highway 20, Chukar Park has campsites with partial shade and in full sun. Note that the high-standard, graded county road leading to t...