Unnamed Thermal Spring
An unnamed thermal point on Bureau of Land Management ground in Harney County, far out, with Hines the nearest listed town at 92 miles. The water on file is at the low edge of soaking warm, about body temperature. Access is open and the land is public, which is more than most of these remote points can say.
From Williams Creek Lane, the closest road, it is a few hundred feet on foot, a short walk. The Burns Andrews Field Office manages the land. Elevation is around forty-four hundred feet, high desert. Snowfall is moderate, a bit over two feet in a winter, and the year is dry at around ten inches.
December through February are flagged on file. Water around body temperature will feel neutral to the hand. No campground is listed and no fee is recorded. Public land and open access mean the main planning is the drive, which is long from anywhere.
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 this 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.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the south.
- Highest ground nearby
- 343 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the south
A slice through the ground from south to north, 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 27% 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.
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