Saline Valley Warm Springs

Saline Valley Warm Springs is a group of springs in a remote valley in Inyo County, California, inside the largest national park in the lower 48 states. The National Park Service manages the site under the Saline Valley Warm Springs Management Plan, whose Record of Decision took effect on June 14, 2019. The springs area includes Lower Warm Springs, Palm Spring, and a primitive campground at about 1,375 feet, and Upper Warm Spring lies about 2.5 miles to the northeast, based on USGS coordinates.

The springs are 35 to 40 miles from the nearest paved road, depending on the NPS source. Saline Valley Road crosses either North Pass at 7,300 feet or South Pass at 5,997 feet, and the park states that a high-clearance vehicle and all-terrain tires are necessary, with four-wheel drive needed in some conditions. Winter weather can close the passes. The campground takes no reservations, and the park entrance fee applies. On September 15, 2026, a propane grill ignited a palm at Lower Springs, and the fire burned the camp host site. The NPS reopened part of the campground on September 17 and, by early October, more than half of it, including Palm Spring; the burned area at Lower Springs remains closed by order of the superintendent while crews prepare to remove debris.

Recreational pools and art installations at the springs date from the 1950s. The Bureau of Land Management oversaw the area until the California Desert Protection Act of 1994 moved it into the national park. Inyo County, the BLM, and the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe, for whom the springs have long been important, served as cooperating agencies on the management plan. Big Pine, on U.S. Highway 395, is the starting point for the North Pass route.