Unnamed Thermal 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.
This unnamed thermal point sits inside Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, roughly 26 miles from Hines. It runs scalding. Access is on record as restricted, which on a federal wildlife refuge usually means the refuge sets the terms and you should ask before going anywhere near it. Nothing on file suggests anyone soaks here, and the temperature alone would rule that out.
High desert basin here, a little over four thousand feet up, light on snow and dry all round. South Harney Lake Lane runs closest, and the point sits about a fifth of a mile from it, so on paper the walk is short. This ground is Fish and Wildlife Service land, run as refuge, which means wildlife rules come before anything a visitor wants.
December through February get the best marks on file. Access is restricted, so contact the refuge before making a plan around this spot. Water at this temperature causes burns instantly; keep hands and feet clear of any outflow. A sample taken in the summer of 2018 gave a neutral pH, and that is the most recent chemistry on file. No campground is listed nearby.
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.
- Setting
- Gentle slope
- The ground tilts gently up to the south.
- Highest ground nearby
- 33 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the south
A slice through the ground from southwest to northeast, 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 4% 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 neutral (pH 7.2).
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this spring is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear. The water is dangerously hot, so bring water shoes and test pools carefully.
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