Roper Lake Hot Springs Arizona

Roper Lake State Park Hot Spring near Safford, Arizona, is a developed geothermal pool within Roper Lake State Park in the Gila Valley, where bicarbonate-rich thermal water emerges from the deep volcanic geology of the Transition Zone between the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range geological provinces at the foot of Mount Graham — one of the sky islands of southeastern Arizona. The spring feeds a small stone-lined soaking pool maintained by Arizona State Parks, popular with birders visiting the Gila Valley's extraordinary diversity of avian species at the intersection of Rocky Mountain, Chihuahuan Desert, and Sonoran Desert bird communities. Mount Graham, rising to 10,720 feet directly behind the park, hosts the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope and other international observatories in one of North America's premier astronomical sites, creating an unusual juxtaposition of geothermal soaking and cutting-edge space science.