Lee-Allen Hot Springs (Churchill County, Nevada)

For our second destination, Nick and I head south on US-95 about 15 miles from Fallon, NV. I read of this site in the online copy of a archaeological survey book of Nevada published in the 1950's. As the records are nearly seventy years old, I was a bit concerned about how well the site might be preserved.

The site is just half-a-mile or so off of the highway. A fence guards the boundary of the hot-spring and warns of 180 degree temperatures being expelled from the earth below. The steam rolling off of the water source leave no ambiguity about the meaning of the sign or the danger the area poses. We get some pictures, but don't go beyond the fence.

In addition to the hot spring, the book described a number of tufa boulders nearby, most marked by petroglyphs. The boulders were in plain sight and only a few yards from the spring. We scoured them pretty closely and found some signs of a few pecked rock art figures, but most were in poor condition. I'm not sure if that is centuries causing that the unfortunate defacing by modern visitors.

The final item worth checking out is also mentioned in the write-up. The text describes how one of the tufa boulders had cracked open to form something of a room and how someone in the distant past had patched up the holes between the crack with small rocks essentially making a three walled structure. The structure may have been used as a hunting lodge or even a more permanent dwelling long ago. The structure remains mostly intact, though seems to be inhabited by less civilized desert-inhabitants these days.

Overall, this site is not as well preserved as I had hoped, but it was still worth visiting. Hopefully, our last stop will be noteworthy.