Mount Charleston well water and your softener
Mount Charleston's Kyle Canyon community doesn't drink Lake Mead water. Its supply comes from four mountain wells, in two groups with different hardness.
How hard is Mount Charleston water?
Figures published by Kyle Canyon Water District. The dial setting is the number to enter on your softener.
| City or area | How hard | Range (grains per gallon) | Softener dial setting | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mount Charleston, Echo Wells area | Very hard | about 14 | 14 | Kyle Canyon Water District, water quality summary, 2026 (2025 data) |
| Mount Charleston, Rainbow View area | Very hard | about 16 | 16 | Kyle Canyon Water District, water quality summary, 2026 (2025 data) |
1. Who supplies your water?
2. How many people live in your home?
What the dial setting means
This is the number to key into your softener's control head (the box on top of the tank) where it asks for water hardness, often shown as "Hardness" or "gpg". It is how the softener knows how much hardness it is taking out of each gallon.
When the resin inside is full of minerals, the softener recharges: it washes the resin with brine from the salt tank and sends the minerals down the drain. For your household that works out to about every 7 days, and it happens automatically.
Too low a number lets hard water through between recharges. Too high a number makes it recharge sooner than it needs to, using extra salt and water.
Kyle Canyon has two water sources with different hardness; this is the Echo Wells figure. Source: Kyle Canyon Water District, water quality summary, 2026 (2025 data).
Nobody pays to be listed or ranked here, and we don't make, sell, rent or install softeners or filters.
How this figure was measured
Who published it
What the figure is
How we use it
Mountain wells, not the lake
Kyle Canyon’s four wells draw from the bedrock aquifer, which is recharged by rain and snowmelt on the mountain. That makes its water quite different from the valley’s: far less sodium and fewer dissolved solids, though still very hard.
| Echo Wells | Rainbow Well | |
|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 244 ppm (14 gpg) | 280 ppm (16 gpg) |
| Calcium | 68 ppm | 68 ppm |
| Magnesium | 12 ppm | 18.5 ppm |
| Sodium | 2.7 ppm | 15 ppm |
| Total dissolved solids | 237 ppm | 307 ppm |
All figures are averages from the district’s water quality summaries published in 2026 (2025 data).
Low sodium, a different trade-off
Valley water already carries 89 ppm of sodium; Echo Wells water carries 2.7. A softener adds some sodium as it removes hardness, so homeowners watching sodium here may prefer potassium chloride in the brine tank.
Sizing on the mountain
On Echo Wells water (14 grains per gallon) a family of four needs 32,000 grains; on Rainbow Well water (16), 40,000 grains. Cabins used only at weekends use far less water, so a 24,000-grain softener is often plenty; enter fewer people in the calculator to reflect part-time use.
Questions about Mount Charleston water
- How hard is the water on Mount Charleston?
- The Kyle Canyon Water District's 2026 summaries give an average of 244 ppm (14 grains per gallon) for the Echo Wells and 280 ppm (16 grains per gallon) for the Rainbow Well.
- Which well serves my home?
- According to the district, the three Echo Wells mainly serve Old Town, Cathedral Rock and Echo View, and the Rainbow Well mainly serves Rainbow View.
- Who runs Mount Charleston's water?
- The Kyle Canyon Water District, a public district operated and maintained by the Las Vegas Valley Water District.