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This page is offered as a public service only, as an informational and educational webpage.  This is not a marketing site, nor is it a "preachy" site -- I have nothing to sell to you, and there is nothing I am trying to get you to believe, and rather, this page (or set of pages) is simply offered freely out of love and appreciation for the many gifts of God/Being/Source with which we are blessed on this planet.  All information offered is simply reported to the best of my ability, and my reportage, opinions and preferences as stated in this page remain my own.  If you choose to drink or use water from this spring or from other wild springs, you do so only at your own risk and you take sole responsibility for your choices and your actions. I take no responsibility for any outcomes you or others may encounter from drinking or using water from this spring or other wild springs, nor from streams or creeks, etc.  If you have any questions or concerns about the safety of, or use of, water from any wild source (spring, stream, creek, lake, etc.) please consult with your licensed healthcare professional.

I hope you enjoy this page!  Have fun!

To learn more about the author, please click here to go to the Vinny Pinto Central Directory website.

In August of 2004, I received an e-mail from a resident named Lori Sampson from nearby Montgomery County, Maryland, of which the introduction read as follows:

Hi,
I just stumbled upon your site.

I live near Rockville, MD & don;t get up to Frederick much, but closer to my home are 3 natural springs where people have been known to fill up their jugs & you could publish on your site.  I've personally been to 2 of them...

At this time, this page is one of the first spring-specific pages on my Fun Springs website, devoted to interesting wild springs and healing springs from across North America.  If you know of other interesting wild springs such as:

• healing springs or mystical springs 
• wild springs which produce high-quality water
• springs which are reputedly fed from extremely deep water sources which are claimed to supply primordial water or primal water 

in North America in which you think other folks might be interested, please feel free to drop me a line at -- I will be happy to incorporate such information.

If you are interested in seeing professional  photos of the landscape, animals and plants in the Catoctin mountains immediately surrounding the spring, you may wish to check out some photos taken by Bob Cammarata, a wildlife photographer based in Baltimore who spends much of his time shooting photographs in these mountains -- he is also a frequent visitor to the spring!  To see some of his photos of the local area in his online photo gallery, please click here.

This page is offered as a public service only, as an informational and educational webpage.  I have nothing to sell to you, and there is nothing I am trying to get you to believe, and rather, this page (or set of pages) is simply offered out of love and appreciation for the many gifts of God/Being/Source with which we are blessed on this planet.  All information offered is simply reported to the best of my ability, and my reportage, opinions and preferences as stated in this page remain my own.  If you choose to drink or use water from this spring or from other wild springs, you do so only at your own risk and you take sole responsibility for your choices and your actions. I take no responsibility for any outcomes you or others may encounter from drinking or using water from this spring or other wild springs, nor from streams or creeks, etc.  If you have any questions or concerns about the safety of, or use of, water from any wild source (spring, stream, creek, lake, etc.) please consult with your licensed healthcare professional. 

I hope you enjoy this page!  Have fun!

To learn more about the creator of this website, please click here to go to the Vinny Pinto Central Directory website.

The first is a very short walk from River Rd in Potomac, near 7 Locks Rd & the I-495 exit.  You park across the street but a little down the road from the firehouse (caution - there are No Parking signs up along River Rd, but if you're there & gone in 5-10 min., they can't really be enforced)  The spring comes thru a long white PCV pipe, the source is in a nearby rock quarry called Stoneyhurst.

The 2nd is Clean Drinking Manor spring, a short walk from the end of Susannah Lane (near the Audobon Society & Manor Rd) in Bethesda/Kensington.  Take the path from the lane into Rock Creek Park and look thru the trees to your right.  You'll see a concrete apparatus & small spillway where the water gushes out.  I've not filled up a jug here, but I've drunk its water from my cupped hand & generously splashed my hot face with it.

The 3rd - which I've not actually been to - is the original Sandy Spring, at the end of Meetinghouse Rd off Rte 108 east of Olney.  The property is adjacent to the very old Friends Meetinghouse.  I gather you take a short walk from the end of this road.  You can also access this area via a 1.5 mile Legacy Trail from Woodlawn, a historic home on Norwood Rd just off New Hampshire Ave.  Sandy Spring MD was part of the Underground Railroad - Friends were heavily into abolition.

I've been to Berkeley Springs WV which has a spigot in the park you can fill jugs from.  They have a summer-only public pool filled with mineral spring water (not sure if they have to use any chlorine), but lots of people just splash & wade in the channel & shallow pools in the park.  You can also get a massage & hot soak in the spartan Bath House.  But at 74 degrees, I'm not sure BS qualifes as a "warm spring." 

For that, you can head down to western Virginia about 2 hours away from BS.  Warm Springs (a little ways from The Homestead resort) has a public bathhouse (2 actually - for men & women).  Last I checked it was $12 for an hour, and children are alowed but only from 10-11am (my 6 yr old daughter LOVED it).  You can float (it's ~5' deep) in the nude or in a bathing suit.  It's the actual springs themselves, bubbling up from earth at 100 degrees.  Really neat. The spring water also flows outside into a small stream that you can wade in.  The bathhouses have no roofs however, and are only open April thru October.  They are called the Jefferson Pools & are well worth the visit!

Homestead is horrendously expensive however - our family splurged & went for 2 weeknights in Oct. for a "discount" rate that still ran us several hundred dollars.  A few of the hot springs bubble up on the estate, but they're fenced in & you can't wade in them.  All guests have use of the lovely indoor pool which is spring-fed, but that's it for taking advantage of soaking in hot springs, unless you want to fork out big bucks for spa treatments.  Spring water is cooled & piped to guest rooms at Homestead (so, for that matter, is water in Berkeley Springs.  All homes in downtown BS have that spring water piped right into their homes)  And I may be mistaken, or else I'm thinking about the nearby hot spring resort The Greenbrier, but you can't even drive around & see the estate anymore unless you're a registered guest.  That say it's for post 9/11 "security."

The only related springs I can mention that are out your way are the limestone spring-fed creeks in Washington County - Conocheague, Antietam & Beaver Creeks.  Good for tubing & wading!

End of Lori's text

Disclaimer and Cautionary Note
Please be sure to fully and adequately test water from any natural (aka wild) spring before you make the decision to ingest it; the quality of water found at wild springs will vary greatly, and many may contain levels of coliform bacteria that would be considered to be in excess of guidelines in your region for drinking water, and some may even contain harmful organisms such as giardia or harmful varieties of e. coli, etc. You bear the sole responsibility for deciding whether or not to drink water from any spring or other wild natural source. This website is offered simply as resource to provide some additional information on some natural wild springs that have come to my attention, and/or that I have visited personally, and the listing or mention of a spring or other natural water source on this website does not imply that the water is safe to drink, and rather, you alone bear the responsibility for deciding whether or not to ingest water from any of these springs, or whether to allow family members, pets or livestock drink such water. Further, while I do choose to drink the water from some of the springs that I have listed on this site, and while I may mention that fact at times, that does not imply that it is necessarily safe for you to ingest the same water, as individuals vary greatly in terms of their hardiness, level of health, level of immune function, and resistance to disease.

The creator of this website and any and all other persons involved in the setup and maintenance of the website take no responsibility for any outcomes associated with anyone's use of the water from any of the springs listed on this website.

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