Thermo Hot Springs
The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
A second Thermo Hot Springs entry sits in the same patch of Beaver County as the first, under twenty miles from Milford. This vent runs slightly hotter still, well past the point where water scalds, and it is listed as a USGS thermal site with no sign in the record that anyone bathes here. Land ownership and access are blank.
Getting to it means leaving the road and walking something under half a mile across ground that sits around five thousand feet and sees very little rain. Snow is light in winter. The road itself has no recorded name, and no agency is listed as owning or managing the land.
Scalding water, so keep clear of the source and assume any pool fed by it is dangerous until proven otherwise. Winter months are the ones the record favors. The closest camping on file is Hanging Rock Campground, around eighteen miles off. The water sample is from 1963 and shows high dissolved solids with a mildly alkaline pH; treat both as historical readings. Confirm access before driving out.
USGS hasn't flown a detailed laser scan here yet, so this view comes from aerial photos and older elevation data.
- Setting
- Gentle slope
- The ground tilts gently up to the north.
- Highest ground nearby
- 17 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the north
A slice through the ground from west to east, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
Landsat's thermal camera passed over on a clear winter day, December 19, 2022. This spring's heat shows up from about 440 miles up. The brightest yellow marks the warmest ground, roughly 13°F warmer than the land around it.
Drag to compare. The view is about 2½ miles across, and each thermal pixel covers roughly 300 feet of ground, so individual pools blur into one warm patch.
Thermal: Landsat 8/9 surface temperature, USGS (public domain), via Microsoft Planetary Computer. Aerial: USGS The National Map. More springs seen from space.
That's about 1½ times the US average of 65. It's higher than at 28% 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 Thermo Hot Springs is slightly alkaline (pH 8.1) with 1500 mg/L total dissolved solids. It is notably rich in sodium (supports circulation and skin hydration), sulfate (traditionally used for skin conditions and inflammation), and chloride (natural antiseptic with skin health benefits).
Overview Hanging Rock Campground is located just off of Highway 21 between the towns of Beaver and Minerville, UT. The campground has six campsites all located alongside the scenic Beaver River. Along with the scenery that the river provides, it also offers what many consider to be the best fising in Beaver County. Recreation The Beaver River provides opportunity for year-round fishing. The Paiute ATV Trail and Beaver Bench Mountain Bike Trail System are located just down the road in Beaver,...