Hot springs in Nevada

Nevada sits almost entirely within the Basin and Range Province, and its thermal springs are a direct product of that setting. Over millions of years the crust here has been stretched and thinned, which raises the flow of heat from below. Rain and snowmelt sink into the ranges, travel deep along the faults that bound each valley, and rise again where those faults reach the surface, often at the foot of a range. Most Nevada springs do not need a young volcano nearby to stay warm. The Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology at the University of Nevada, Reno keeps the state's geothermal data, including spring and well records.

Public land dominates the map. The Bureau of Land Management manages nearly 48 million acres in Nevada, about 63 percent of the state's land base, and most remote springs are on BLM land. In the northwest, the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, managed by the BLM's Black Rock Field Office in Winnemucca, lists natural hot springs among its main attractions along the edge of the Black Rock playa. The Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest covers many of the central ranges, and in the far south Lake Mead National Recreation Area manages the Nevada side of Black Canyon below Hoover Dam.

Seasons work in reverse compared with the mountain states. Lake Mead National Recreation Area closes the Goldstrike Canyon and Arizona Hot Springs trails each summer because of extreme heat, from May 15 through September 30, and lifts the closure when forecast highs at Willow Beach drop below 93 degrees. In the north, most springs are reached on unpaved BLM roads, and distances between paved highways, fuel and services are long.