The Alkali Flat Hot Springs are located in a remote part of Western Nevada.  You will need to fuel up before you make the drive out there and also bring your own drinking water and food.  The nearest town with services is Tonopah.  The hot springs were built up around the 1930s with a dance hall and bar.  Not much remains now, except for an empty powerhouse and lots of power lines (which are still operating).

There are two small pools that people have made and you can adjust the temperature a little bit with the pipes and hoses.  Someone wrote on the smaller pipe some directions saying “Minutes to heat up, hours to cool down.”  The hot water flows from two different spots near the pools.  The small tube which is a solid tube and immovable, brings water on the east side of the pools and is about 105 degrees Fahrenheit (about 40.5 degrees Celsius).  The big tube comes down the center of the pools and this is the one you can move to make the pools hotter.  This tube is 120 degrees Fahrenheit (about 49 degrees Celsius).  These hot springs don’t smell like they have sulfur in them, but apparently they may have lithium according to the Wikipedia page for Alkali.

We got to Alkali Hot Springs late at night and were confused at where they were located at first.  We pulled up next to the large pond which featured lukewarm water with algae in it and thought this was the hot springs.  However, we quickly heard running water and followed a very small stream up to the two pools which were located just to the south about 130 ft.  The night we arrived, the pools were not very hot, as we discovered that someone had taken the large hose out.  We put the large hose back in the pool and let it warm up while we set up camp nearby.  It did warm up nicely and got hot enough to relax for an hour or more!

The smaller pools are large enough for about 2-3 adults each and you may be sharing with others.  There is a small concrete pad next to the deeper pool and there are some metal poles that you can hang your towel or other items.  The larger pool that is located below the hot springs seems to be about 4-5 ft deep and has some very small fish in it.  We didn’t bother going in this pool since it was the middle of winter, but I bet it would be nice to swim in the summer.

As you can imagine, these hot springs don’t get many visitors, yet this place still has tons of trash around it.  If you enjoy these hot springs, make sure to pick up some of the trash and clean up the area to make it a little better.  We picked up some cans and chip bags.