Truckee River Route - The Boiling Springs
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(micro)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This cache is not where you would expect it to be, and it's not there for a reason. Please DO NOT place it on the trail marker.
Easy access with any type vehicle, regardless of your direction of travel. There are hot water ponds nearby...watch the kids & pets. Cache log is printed on waterproof paper that can only be written on with a ball-point pen, so bring one along. It's not your imagination, it really does smell like onions here...I'll explain why below.
The California Emigrant Trail followed the north bank of the Humboldt River through present-day northeastern Nevada, to the Humboldt Sink. At Humboldt Bar, the trail diverged, with the Truckee River Route crossing the western edge of the Forty-Mile Desert to the Truckee River at Wadsworth, roughly the same route followed by Interstate 80 today. In all, some 250,000 people would use this trail from the early 1840's until the introduction of the railroads in the late 1860's.
Marker T-8 ~Boiling Springs~
This trail marker used to be located near one of the active steam vents. Western States Geothermal Company fenced off the old location, and the marker was moved to it's present, safer location.
Early pioneers called this "The Spring Of False Hope". Coming across the desert, the oxen of the wagon trains smelled the moisture before reaching the springs and rushed forward to drink the scalding water. The emigrants collected water in casks to cool for later use, but the water was barely drinkable due to it's mineral content and foul sulpher smell.
Gold seeker Ansel McCall described his midnight arrival at Boiling Springs in 1849:
"...Others had arrived here before us. Their baleful campfires gleamed here and there, and in the pale and misty light, tall gaunt figures, with disheveled locks, long beards, and tattered garments, perfectly white from the fine impalpable dust which covered them, fitted about in moody silence. The ground was covered with bleached and whitened bones of horses and cattle, the wrecks of other years, and the dried and decaying carcasses of innumerable animals of this, broken carts and wagons, and all imaginable debris." (they wrote so eloquently back then, don't you think?)
In the late 1920's, attempts were made to develop the tourism potential of this area. The hot water was used in a bathhouse and swimming pool associated with a service station along U.S. Highway 40, the perdecessor of today's Interstate 80. At present, the area is utilized for geothermal power exploration and development, and agricultural processing - in 1992, a 21 megawatt double flash power plant was brought on line, and in 2002, a 5 megawatt binary unit was constructed. Seven geothermal production wells at depths of 1,309 feet to 1.1 miles penetrate permeable zones in tertiary volcanic rocks in the hanging wall of the Brady's fault, yielding water temperatures to 417° F.; in 1977, Geothermal Food Processors, Inc. received a $2.8 million dollar federally guaranteed loan to construct a geothermal food dehydration plant. The plant, now owned by Olam International, is still in operation today, primarily dehydrating onions and garlic.
Additional well drilling and geothermal development of the area continues today.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)