Hot Springs
A thermal point carrying the plain name Hot Springs, it lies under two miles from the South Dakota town of the same name in Fall River County. The water is warm, a little under body temperature, nearer a pool than a bath. USGS has a site here and a 2009 water analysis. Neither owner nor access status is recorded.
Roadside, less than thirty yards from an unnamed road, at around 3,500 feet. Winters bring three feet of snow and precipitation is near twenty inches. Cold Brook Campground lies roughly one and a half miles out. Manager and land unit are both missing from the record, and the surroundings go undescribed.
Winter comes up as the best time. Roadside. Expect a wade at pool temperature. The 2009 sample came back near neutral, carrying sodium, calcium, magnesium, sulfate and chloride. Nobody recorded an owner or an access status. No fee appears. Cold Brook has camping a mile and a half away.
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 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.
- Setting
- Canyon floor
- Steep ground climbs away on both sides of the spring.
- Highest ground nearby
- 188 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the west
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 1% 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 Hot Springs is neutral (pH 7.2). It is notably rich in magnesium (known for muscle relaxation and stress relief).
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Overview Located less than 1 mile north of Hot Springs, South Dakota sits one of the area's most perferred campgrounds. At the south end of Cold Brook Campground sits Cold Brook Lake, a popular destination for those looking to take a swim at the beach, snorkel in the crystal clear water or wet a line while trying to catch a variety of fish species. At the north end of the campground sits a wildlife area with a two-track trail that is good for a morning stroll or a short bike ride with the pos...
Hot Springs is road-accessible, so you can bring more gear.
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