Unnamed Thermal Spring
A scalding unnamed thermal point in Malheur County, Oregon, about fourteen miles from Vale. The recorded temperature is far past hot-bath territory, into the range where water burns on contact, so this is a thing to observe from a distance. Nobody has filed who owns the ground or what the access rules are. It sits low for this part of the state, down around 2,500 feet.
A fifth of a mile in from the closest road, a short walk by the listing's own description, and the road has no name attached. Low desert by local standards. Very little rain falls in a year, and snow is light. Nobody is listed as land manager.
The months the record rates best are December through February. Assume nothing about access; the owner is unknown, and that could mean private land. The water will scald. Keep clear of the source and of any channel carrying it. There is no campground on file and no water chemistry.
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
- Open ground
- Flat, open ground all around.
- Highest ground nearby
- 26 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 about 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 33% 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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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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