Post
by Guest » Wed Mar 10, 2004 4:58 pm
I wrote this the 15 years or so ago, when the BM first moved to the Black Rock
A Wander through Northwest Nevada
The first thing I saw that morning as I lay in my sleeping bag, warm in the dawn chill, was the sun, a fiery red ball edging over the far horizon, through the steamy mist rising from the hot pond waters. I jumped from my bag into the cold dawn to shoot a photograph before the primeval sunrise was lost to the coming day.
The red wing black birds were already awake singing in their reed fortresses. I made my shot and saw more photos waiting for me, so I took them also. A tall white Snow Egret, blurred by the mist, stalking through the tall grass, caught my attention, and my lens.
The hot spring fed pond waters were a dreamy expressionist mirror in the morning calm. I became aware that far more birds than I could see were chirping, singing, and making the marsh an outland symphony hall.
A Wilderness Oasis
I went on to walk around the marsh in wonder at the lush greenness, the precious water mirrored still, steam rising into the early coolness, the sight and song of a myriad of birds, the regal snow egret stepping daintily, carefully, across the tall grass.
What was this lush marsh?, in Nevada? I looked into the distance beyond the marsh, reassuringly, the sun's harsh glare reflected off of the dry lake bed only a half mile away. The dry lake ringed by the burnt brown mountains, told me that this could only be Nevada. To the west, I saw, as I turned, a massive granite ridge rising thousands of feet above the sterile flat, still holding snow cupped in its rocky folds. The melt waters of those high mountain snowfields fed the luxurious oasis before me.
The misty air softened the edges of the still pond water. The green reeds and sky blue water blended together until the very boundary seemed to be a mirage.
I set down my camera and dove through the blurred boundary. The startling 100 degree temperature of the water wrapped around me like a warmed blanket, surfacing, I had a frog's eye view through the morning mist of the world around me. To the east the red ball of the sun slowly climbed to the sky. Around the edges of the pond small round birds hopped in and out of the reeds lining the shore.
Nevada is so often thought of as utter desolation, only to be raced across as fast as possible between the wonders of Utah and the beauty of California. This small hotspring fed oasis would be a natural wonder in any of our fifty states, yet here it lies, isolated in the nearly barren wildness that is most of the state of Nevada.
Nevada is full of surprises like this, beautiful natural areas scattered across the vast emptiness of the Great Basin. Years ago I began to explore the outback of Nevada, where the population is seldom more than one or two people per square mile. There are no bright lights, no casinos, but instead hundreds of miles of little traveled, mostly dirt roads, leading to seldom visited islands of natural beauty like this oasis. It is easy to spend several days and drive hundreds of miles and not see more than a handful of people, often, no one at all will cross your path.
It takes a special kind of rig to tour backhills Nevada. First, and by far the most important, it must be reliable! A breakdown here will almost always have serious consequences. It must be comfortable, long days down seldom graded roads will wear a driver right down to the nubs.
Four wheel drive is a must, getting stuck fifty miles from a highway is nothing like fun. The ability to carry enough food and gear to survive, including several spare tires is critical. I have found that being able to sleep inside comfortably is pretty important when the wind howls in off the dry lake beds kicking dust clouds thousands of feet high across the landscape at forty or fifty miles an hour.... and never forget the importance of good gas mileage, out here service stations are far and few between, and gas isn't cheap in places like Denio, Gabbs, Duckwater, Beowawie.
Today it is my Dodge 4x4 wagon I am counting on to see me through.
Off to the High Lakes!
This trip I am off to visit to two isolated lakes in northwest Nevada. High Rock lake and Summit lake have aroused my curiosity for years. What are lakes doing out in the middle of utter desolation, just these two, miles from each other yet both up around 8-9,000 feet in elevation?
The Black Rock Desert
After my swim in the hot pond, I eat a quick breakfast and start out across the dry lake bed. The surface is hard and smooth and dead flat all the way to the far distant mountains rimming the prehistoric lake bed. I run the car up to 70 miles per hour. My friend Todd claims to have drive out here for ten minutes at sixty miles an hour with his eyes closed!
A Misplaced Event
This lake bed is a remnant of prehistoric Lake Lahontan, which once covered much of northwestern Nevada. Today the absolutely flat lake bed is known as the Black Rock Desert home to land speed record attempts, hobby rocket launches and the sadly misplaced Burning Man, an attempt it seems to cram thousands of naive urban types in to one of the harshest and once emptiest landscapes in America.
It is after all the very empty vastness that is so compelling here. I pray each Labor Day for a good soaking rain on the mud of the playa, perhaps when thousands are immobilized by deep gumbo mud, requiring food and water drops until the land dries, perhaps by the next summer, someone will come to their senses and move this tribulation on the land to Modesto or Stockton or some such place.
I cruise at an even 70 out across the wide expanse, aiming toward the Black Rock itself, a dark volcanic mass miles away across the lake bed. The Black Rock was named by the first white man to travel in this area, Captain James Fremont, back in 1843 .
My path across the Black Rock desert veered to the north, and left the lake bed close to its northern edge, becoming a rutted, rocky trail, first used by Oregon bound wagon trains 140 years ago, along a narrow valley drained by a watercourse called "Mud Meadow Creek," a long thin line of green grass, a few scraggly willows, with an occasional pool of cloudy water. The valley is bordered by harsh rocky ridges, not a sign of a living thing can be seen up in those stony wastes. The only habitation along fifty miles of bad road is a trailer up in a side canyon. A crude sign at the road says,
"Little Joe Opal Mine."
The valley opens up into a broad high basin 20 miles above the opal mine. A large meadow laced with small streams occupies the center of this basin. This is Mud Meadow. The Oregon bound trains would leave the California trail at Winnemucca, cross the Black Rock desert, come up the along Mud Meadow Creek to this spot, here was welcome grass and water for their oxen. This trip I saw nearly wild range cattle scattered across the meadow. A small group of wild horses ran from my car, dark manes flying in the wind. Nothing much different now than a hundred years ago. Aside from the isolated Soldier Meadows Ranch and bed and breakfast, amazingly enough.
Up to High Rock Lake
I followed the route of the wagons west to a narrow canyon. I had to cross the scattered creeks in four wheel drive, first gear, hoping the mud wasn't too deep. The road rose to follow along the right side of a small, but precipitous gorge. The rock bound gorge was the outlet for High Rock Lake during the glacial epochs, when it was much larger than it is now. I stopped to explore the gorge a bit. Pools of water trapped in the rocky hollows of the stream floor allowed lush vegetation to flourish here protected from the worst of the weather by the narrow walls of the gorge. The area looked to me like a good spot for wild life, if it looked good to me, it probably did to the Paiute Indians also. I poked around the cliff walls some more and found what I had suspected, about thirty feet up on the southfacing canyon wall, warmed by the sun was a small cave. I climbed to it. It was about 15 feet deep and 20 feet across at the mouth. The roof was blacked by the smoke of countless fires over countless centuries. From the entrance I had a fine view into the gorge and back to the east. Mud Meadow lay quietly in the distance.
I continued along the rough road down a steep descent. Here the immigrants chained their wagon wheels immobile to control their speed down the precipitous grade. They like I came to a broad bowl shaped valley bounded on all sides with high peaks. At the south side of the bowl like a spot of milk left in a cereal bowl lay a large sheet of water.
High Rock Lake
The first of my destinations, High Rock Lake. The wagon trail led off to the north again through a slot in the bowl edge. I went south across the crater like bowl to the lake. The wind howled out of the southwest across the valley, its force strong and unbroken as it charged across the flats. Near the lake I found a lonely weatherbeaten line shack built of square cut railroad ties. Inside was a collection of business cards nailed to the wall by visitors over the years. Some of the cards were nearly twenty years old! I found one cautionary rhyme,
"don't go in the lake, the leaches
here are real sons of beaches."
The lake lay just beyond the shack, the shore shelved off very gradually, it would be a long walk in the mud to a swim. The note on the leaches, the cold wind howling around me, and the prospect of icy water were easily enough to dissuade me from trying. Beyond the lake stark mountains rose against the southern sky, their northern slopes still holding snow.
The country here doesn't look like a desert. It is a high mountainous steppe country. It could be Tibet, or Scotland. The ground is covered by sagebrush and other low shrubs constantly battered by the unceasing wind. The sense of utter aloneness that one gets in the high and wild areas of Nevada can be disturbing. It is common to be the only human being in two hundred square miles. Out here one part of my mind is constantly on my car. What if it didn't start when I walked back to it from the lake shore, slid behind the seat, and turned the key? It is comforting to know that it has never let me down.
I retraced my steps along the High Rock gorge and back across Mud meadows. I soon passed Soldier Meadows Ranch driving upward along high desolate ridges. I share this land only with the occasional band of pronghorn antelope.
Summit Lake
Summit Lake is, like High Rock Lake, a remnant of a once much large glacial lake. It too, lies in a high windswept bowl. Here there is an indian reservation, certainly one of the most isolated in the nation. A few small homes and trailers mark the settlement. Endangered Lahontan Cutthroat trout are raised here. Little evidence of any other endeavor of man is to be seen. I drive on by and again across miles of high lonely steppe, eventually coming down from the highlands to the little crossroads community of Denio. with gas, restaurant, and a small motel A Wander through Northwest Nevada
