Fish Lake Valley Hot Well

Tonopah Field Office BLM

Location: Fish Lake Valley Hot Well

It's really quite nice camped near Emigrant Pass. It wasn't too far below freezing at night and a bit of early morning sun could bring the temperature up quickly. And this morning, I finished brushing my teeth and turned around to find this bunch looking uncertainly at me.

A collection of pronghorn with different ideas on which way to run.

They milled a bit, took off up the wash shortly, milled about some more, took off down the hill, stopped and milled again. They even vanished and came back. Good thing for them I wasn't really anything to worry about.

There they go, up the wash.

No, maybe the other way.

Returned again from off over the hill.

The pronghorn were my first visitors. My tire marks out on the road were only marred by my own footprints. As pleasant as it was, I was ready for the next thing. I pondered returning the way I came rather than brave the rest of this iffy road over the top. It looked like it was getting even less use above here. I eventually decided to go on and am glad I did. It was much better on the far side although it goes through the bottom of a wash and could certainly have been much worse. Once into Fish Lake Valley, all the roads were well maintained. I do worry about how deep they've been dug into the ground for when water flows, but they were dry. "The Crossing", the outlet of Fish Lake, was also good, so I made it to a curiosity I had spotted on the map, the "hot well".

Water from the "hot well" pools in artificial ponds which someone has supplied with goldfish (that stick to the warmer side) and nature supplies with ducks.

The hot well was dug accidentally, supposedly while trying for oil, and pours forth quite a bit of water at an excellent hot tub temperature. A rectangular tub was built and the water continues on to ponds after it, with a narrow constriction between each. There's also a sink of constantly pouring hot water. A sign beside it suggests the water is no good for drinking, cooking, or cleaning.

Between the ponds.

I'm sure the pronghorn come around the hot well, but here are some of the more reliable wildlife.

An itchy northern shoveler.

The more usual look of the northern shoveler.

Cinnamon teal.

There's a pair of them, but no one showing off cinnamon.

Whoops, they're gone!

And back again.

American coots.

Green-winged teal.

Pied-billed grebe.

The grebe is almost as big as the coot.

A northern harrier made a quick fly by.

The pied-billed grebe are out hunting.

Not, it seems, for the goldfish someone has supplied them with.

The pied-billed grebe are after frogs, and this one got one.

It changed it's grip a few times.

And then the frog was gone.

Some candidates for grebe food: bullfrogs.

There's even more hiding away in the shadows.

But probably not the goldfish, not even the fancy ones.

It's a lot busier than Emigrant Pass. There's not just the couple of people there, but also people driving by on the road for their own reasons. There's water haulers from the Rhyolite Ridge Project up the road, for instance. They grab water from the cooler pond.

The well and tub as it is today.

The whole compound except the toilet behind the hill on the left.

Montgomery Peak is the short peak (compared to the growing stuff on the left) in the middle and Boundary Peak, the high point of Nevada, is the shorter one on its right.

Emigrant Peak to the left of Fish Lake.

More pooling water downstream of Fish Lake.

The night was so, so much colder in the valley than on the pass. But one of the folks around had out a telescope and was willing to share the eyepiece, so I got to see Jupiter, with its grand stripes. We watched the moons pass by. We had a glance at Saturn and a nebula at Orion's belt too. He was still getting the new-to-him device set up, so we stuck to the basics. There can be some advantages to having other people around.

*photo album*




©2023,2024 Valerie Norton
Written 5 Feb 2024