Kern Hot Spring

Kern Hot Spring is a remote natural geothermal spring located within the Sequoia National Park wilderness in the southern Sierra Nevada of California, accessible only via a multi-day backpacking journey through some of the most spectacular high-mountain terrain in the American West. The bicarbonate mineral waters emerge from a fractured rock outcrop on the banks of the upper Kern River — one of California's great wild rivers, flowing through a deep granite canyon — at temperatures suitable for soaking, creating a pool maintained by backpackers in a setting of extraordinary wilderness beauty. Surrounding the springs, the Kern River canyon offers some of the finest wilderness hiking and fishing in the Sierra Nevada, with ancient sequoia groves, granite domes, and the high peaks of the Kern Plateau visible in every direction. Kern Hot Spring is the ultimate backcountry thermal experience in California — earned through days of wilderness travel and rewarded with soaking in geothermal water amid the unspoiled grandeur of the southern Sierra Nevada.