Soldier Meadows Hot Springs 10/25

From Hart Mountain, I moved on to the Black Rock desert in northern Nevada, a place I’d never been before. I wound up at Soldier Meadows, but I initially planned to camp at Fox Homestead in High Rock Canyon. Yikes! I came within a hairsbreadth of getting stuck in the mud twice — in 4WD low — before I hit the canyon entrance and the sign saying “this is a really crappy road”. I had an inch of mud covering all my windows from spinning my wheels madly trying to get rolling after coming to a dead halt in deep mud and water, could see nothing, and my nerves were ragged from coming so close to getting stuck with no winch and no help.

In the canyon, mud ceased to be a problem, but the rocks were so bad I was limping along at 3 mph and bottomed out a couple of times. After 2 miles of this, I decided I wasn’t having any fun and I’d prefer to go somewhere else. Going back through the same two mud-pits was not an option…I wasn’t going to tempt fate again…so I drove out the other way, roughly east and south, and eventually found myself at Soldier Meadows Hot Springs, a place I was unaware existed. After arriving, I discovered that I had dropped two full gas cans off my rear rack somewhere along the way. But where? I had no clue. By that point, I’d been driving for hours.

Soldier Meadows is a gorgeous hot spring. I camped beside the pool in the photo below and enjoyed soaking even though I had to pay for it in mite bites. I hiked over to the main “campground” (really just some rough-and-ready campsites) near a creek that contained rock dams creating a series of pools. I didn’t go down to the creek, so I don’t know how hot the pools are, but they sure were pretty. It was clear that mud is sometimes an issue getting to these pools too, as the road in, dry at the time I was there, was torn up with deep ruts over a broad area where people had gone across a huge mud pit right where the road to the springs diverges from the road in from the east.

I drove out the eastern road and had no issues with traction or rocks, so I would recommend going in that way to any adventurous soul who wants to check out the springs.

Here’s the part of the Black Rock Desert I was camped in

Here’s the hot pool I camped near