High Rock Springs, Lassen County – Update

High Rock Spring, April 1975

These springs in eastern Honey Lake Valley and near the Nevada border are quite unique. They are an ancient spring dating back to the time when the area was covered by Lake Lahontan in the Pleistocene epoch.

The second reason is it is a warm water spring with a constant temperature of 86F.  The springs supports two kinds of fish. First is the Lahontan tui chubs.  This, of course, is rather remarkable that the fish have adapted over the years to thrive in constant warm water in a confined space. Water from the spring then goes underground and re-surfaces 100 yards distant, maintaining a constant cooler temperature at 76F. At this point, again, which is also unusual, is found the Lahontan speckle dace, that was to be on the endangered species list. The Lahontan speckle dace in this spring is no more. In the 1990s, the spring  used as a fish farm. Some one planted  exotic fish in the springs channel, thus caused the speckle dace there to be extinct.

I found the newspaper article of interest from the Lassen Advocate May, 15, 1914 – Here From High Rock. Jas. Mapes and Jas. Dudley were there from High Rock last Monday. Mr. Mapes was proving up on his desert land claim before the officers of the land office. Jimmie is very enthusiastic over prospects down there, and is a very busy man. He says he has the dandy water system of the county, and the water problem is one which will not be a great worry him in the future. He has a chain of three dams, and these, by giving out their waters one at a time as needed, will probably prove sufficient for all purposes. In addition, however, he is contemplating building a dam to impound the waters  of the one spring, which will be a valuable addition to his water supply.

A portion of the tunnel outlet of High Rock Springs. April, 1975

It should be noted that in the 1920s, William Dicting was hired by the Rees Jenkins to develop the springs. He spent eight years to hand drill through the rock to develop the water tunnel to increase water flow.

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