Summer in Ruby Mountains

Larkspur (Delphinium spp)

Unknown

Aster

Unknown 

Unknown

Penstemon (Penstemon spp)

Elegant death camas? (Anticlean elegans)

Elephant heads (Pedicularis groenlandica)

Cushion buckwheat (Erigionum ovalifolium)

Sticky purple geranium (Geranium viscosissium)?

Purple fringe ? (Phacelia sericea)

Summer in Great Basin NP

Manzanita (Arctostaphylos spp)

Wild blue flax (Linum lewisii)

Yellow salsify (Tragopogon dubius)

Unknown

Darkthroat shootingstar (Dodecatheon pulchellum)

Unknown

California fucshia (Epilobium canum) ?

Monkshood (Aconitum columbianum)

Creek to caves, pinyons to bristlecones

Another ten days, another set of sites. After quitting Fallon and finishing up Kingston area of the Toiyabe Range, us bird technicians have migrated to the environs of Great Basin National Park. My first transect in the area was a little outside the park, on BLM land near Sacramento Pass. Not especially new or different, rolling hills of staunch pinyon pine and juniper. Few birds calling, but mostly in black-throated gray warblers, dark-eyed juncos, and juniper titmice. Nearby town of Baker has provided some welcome breaks, with food, drink, and gas to be had. I drove through to get to my next site in Snake Creek, bought myself a hot shower for $5.00, which seems rather steep compared to Kershaw-Ryan SP.

Snake Creek has definitely been my favorite place so far. Within a somewhat isolated area of Great Basin NP, a dirt road winds along the creek with some basic campsites and a few trailheads. A couple of stream crossings, a little steep at the end, bothersome flies at camp, but all well worth the beauty and challenge of transect. It's everything you'd imagine for a mountain creek, a quick cool snowmelt running through pale trunks of aspens, pillars of pines, spruce and fir. Intermittant deer meadows, shadowy forests. Besides favorites of cheeky calls of ruby-crowned kinglets and otherworldly hermit thrush songs, the place is bursting with robins, juncos, chipping sparrows, western tanagers, turkeys, flickers, Cassin's finches, and mountain chickadees.

 

Aspens and conifers along the trail following Snake Creek

Re-entering the meadow above the Johnson Lake trailhead.



 

My last site of the run was the as yet unfinished Lehman Creek. It's a lot like Snake Creek, but oddly not quite as diverse and comes with some stipulations, notably a long walk to the first point and an annoyingly steep trail. Still, very beautiful and quiet, away from the tourist traffic (although many aren't active at the crack of dawn).

So now I'm on my days off in Baker. Although the lack of wifi is lamented, a trip to not-so-close Ely's library and McDonald's provide some contact. Not a jot of phone service though, curse it be the name T-Mobile. Was able to eat actual fruit and vegetables, have some cooked food I didn't make myself, and otherwise enjoy a comfy night's sleep though.

The other day I did some further exploration of the national park, doing more in the line of typical tourist stuff. Had to see the semi-famous Lehman Caves, an ethereal system of stalactites, stalagmites, columns, cave popcorn, cave bacon, shields, and other strange formations. They had some rules in place to prevent the spread of the dreaded bat menace, white-nose syndrome, the disease that has killed millions of hibernating bats. Since I haven't been in a cave for a long time, it wasn't an issue. Definitely need to do some more caving though, it's a rare treat.

 



Miscellaneous stalagmites and stalactites in Lehman Caves

Rare, mysterious shield formations in the Grand Palace room

After lunch at the visitor center, I drove up the scenic drive, then hiked up to see the bristlecone grove in the shelter of Wheeler Peak. Even though I was racing the promised storms, the trail itself was very pleasant. Not too steep or easy, provided enough exercise to satisfy my vacationing self. Sometimes a little rain or hail, but not enough to turn back. The grove itself is quite remarkable. Living on the edge, withstanding hard winds, polishing ice and sand, and little nutritional reward, the bristlecone has the greatest longevity of all known living things. Thousands of years are possible in its lifetime, and even dead they remain standing for hundreds more. Amazingly, the pines living in the harshest conditions are the oldest, growing very slowly. They definitely give you some perspective. Anyway, the adventure continues!

Little snowmelt stream running across Bristlecone Trail

Bristlecone pine, tenacious and wind-sculpted even after death

 

New growth on a struggling bristlecone

Spring in Nevada: Toiyabe Range

Beehive cactus (Escobaria vivipara)

Unknown larkspur (Delphinium spp.)

Hooker's onion (Allium acuminatum)

Woods's rose (Rosa woodsii)

Red columbine (Aquilegia formosa)

Death Valley adventure

So among my side trips while staying in Goldfield was to Death Valley National Park. When I arrived late afternoon on the first day, I toured some of the major sites south of Furnace Creek Visitor Center. Saw the vast, jagged salt flats of Devil's Golf Course, and made it official by flocking with the bus groups to the lowest point in Badwater Basin, and then moseyed back along Artist's Drive.
I'd originally thought to visit the Racetrack, the long-mysterious site of the moving rocks, but the drive would've eaten up a lot of time and been pretty hazardous even with 4x4. And the epic heat was not helpful: up to 115 degrees F.

 Panorama at Devil's Golf Course

 Me at Devil's Golf Course, no cart or clubs required

Supersaline pool at Badwater Basin, lowest point in the United States

So instead I headed up in elevation, taking a lonely road past the Charcoal Kilns and up to Mahoghany Flats campground. Much cooler up there, and a great place to see the stars. The next morning I hiked Wildrose Peak, taking in some wonderful vistas. I didn't feel the need to conquer the mountain though, so I headed down to see some wild burros and some clucky chukars (birds). After lunch in Stovepipe Wells, I headed back to Goldfield, my mini-adventure complete!

Trail through pinyon pines and juniper to Wildrose Peak

Vista of Death Valley salt flats on Wildrose Peak trail

Curious beehive shapes of the Charcoal Kilns, built to create long-burning charcoal for ore-processing in the Valley

Wandering in Goldfield

For a town with less than 400 residents, they packed in a lot of weirdness.
      Let me give you a quick rundown of Goldfield. In 1902 miners struck upon the richest site for gold in the United States. With a few years this place had a whopping 20,000 people, consisting of miners and the people who catered to them. A town sprung up, complete with courthouse, jail, hotel, post office, telephone office, high school, and the inevitable string of saloons. In those days, tens of thousands of dollars of gold ore were being dug up daily. With any boomtown though, the mines eventually went cold. Only a couple are still in operation today, and its nothing compared to its past. Today’s surface of Goldfield is a quaint tourist town relying heavily on its boomtown past to bring people into its rock shops, antique stores, general store, and again with the saloons.
     Looking through the town cemetery is a good place to look into the past, of the people who lived and died here, leaving behind some rocks and sometimes an intriguing epitaph. There’s very little that could be classified as stately and elegant in the gravestones. Most graves are marked only with a white wooden cross, unmarked and unknown. Others are piles of stones or artfully broken bottles, or bare bits of earth with crudely etched headstones. But many of them tell snippets of stories. Instead of beloved father or grandmother, many list arresting details. For occupations you have miners, bootblacks, saloon owners, bartenders, laundresses, housewives, waitresses, section chiefs, messengers, printers, cobblers, gamblers. Many remembered their country of birth: of Ireland, Scotland, Finland, Germany, Austria, Russia, Canada. And the hard and violent past of the town can be found on the headstones. Mine explosions, gunshot wounds, pneumonia, diphtheria, cholera, eating too much library paste. Yes: eating library paste. I’m not making this up. What the heck is the story behind that.

Electrocution?

This has got Clint Eastwood western written all over it

Rock and broken bottle landscaping

I told you!

     I drove around the mining district a little, which is pretty much as imagined. The landscape is pockmarked with tailings and shaft entrances, fenced off with barbed wire and warnings. In some places the old timbers stick out of the earth, further down the road are clusters of spider-framed winches and clapboard outbuildings. Sands are banded yellow and rust-red, rims of rock jut upward, Joshua trees and low shrubs dot the hills. A feral band of burros plod around, curiously pitching their long ears to and fro.

Wide shot of the minind district

An abandoned shaft with some kind of winch

A herd of wild burros (if you squint)

     And down in an out-of-the-way spot: the Car Forest. I sense this is what passes for the Goldfield art gallery. Inexplicably, there is a collection of cars and busses upended, buried nose- or trunk-first into the sand. There’s no apparent pattern or purpose. Some artists have painted imaginative owls, angels, presidents, and skulls, or simply scribed open-ended questions or nonsensical phrases.          In town it seems more normal, but that’s a mistake. Every jewelry parlor, rock shop, antique store, and trading post has about what you’d expect. Except, without fail, each of these places has their resident flake. That’s not meant to be negative. They’re just quirky and talkative and happy to see you and show you around. These are the cool sites you should see. Try the place next store, the guy there can tell some wild yarns about the old saloon. So-and-so own the radio station down the way, you should pop in! I suppose if you’re going to live here, you gotta embrace the friendly flakiness. But, even briefly, it makes you wonder if there’s something in the water.

     Anyway, that’s a full afternoon of Goldfield. More anecdotes forthcoming.

Snow in the Spring, mines in the White, reptiles in the middle of nowhere

So I'm back within the siren song of wifi! This time our port-of-harbor is a spacious, well-equiped mobile home in tiny, eccentric Goldfield. There's no gas station and no grocery store, and yet this odd little place has a rock shop, antique shop, bottle-based landscaping, and something called the "International Car Forest of the Last Church." I will have to do some more exploring.

     So since the sojourn in Logandale I revisited the Moapa site one last time, then turned to Lee Canyon in the Spring Mountains, Queen Canyon in the White Mountains, and finally Cave Spring somewhere to the east. Most of these transects were in a completely new communities, a mix of pinyon pine-juniper slopes and Ponderosa pine forest higher up. A whole new set of birds were committed to memory, including pinyon jays, northern flickers, dark-eyed juncos, and pygmy nuthatches.

     The first set of challenges were with Lee Canyon. Located in the Spring Mountains towering above Las Vegas, it was actually a place that got cold. There was even a light snowfall on two days, although it didn't interfere with the birding. Predictably the canyon was also a much steeper and circuitous route, testing my flatlander legs and altitude-unprepared lungs. Cool birds here were Steller's jays, dark-eyed juncos, bushtits (don't laugh it's a real bird!), and northern flickers. The three of us birders were able to share a spot at McWilliams campground, although the temperatures and afternoon rain/snow/sleet did not encourage much socializing.

 

Morning light along Lee Canyon birding transect

Tiny beehive cactus to-be?

 

Snowfall (!) at McWilliams campground

View of the Spring Mountains from the rim of Lee Canyon

The next site was Queen Canyon, up northwest in the White Mountains. So far west that the nearest gas was in California. Not quite as steep or as cold, although I had to brave it on my own, or nearly alone. Although the other birders dispersed, there was a surprising amount of traffic of campers, day-trippers, and adventurers passing through on this back road. Purely a pinyon pine community, with a mess of spotted towhees, some green-tailed towhees, and black-throated gray warblers. Probably one of the curious features here was the abandoned mining camp above the transect, where I was able to camp one of the nights.

"STAY OUT, STAY ALIVE!"

A lone bunkhouse downslope from the mine entrance

Curious little house with a kitchen and detached bathroom?

Wideview of the mining camp

The last place was Cave Spring, on a bit of BLM land east of the White Mts. Out of practical range of any blip of a town, the roads were surprisingly good getting there. There's a goldmine that maintains the roads, which also explained the occasional semi ploughing past our campsite. Joined up again with the other technician birder for camping, outside a dugout cabin and a dilapidated corral. The Cave Spring transect came with its own quirks. Although the main road is maintained, the road following the Cave Spring wash is a test for my shiny-new high clearance vehicle. Full of rocks, loose gravel, sand, and trenches, on various days I would only be able to drive so far before having to get out and walk. I persevered though, and managed to get my precious Jeep through unscathed. More pinyon pine land, with an emphasis on pinyon jays, canyon wrens, and gray flycatchers. One of the days after birding I was able to go down a warm springs and relax, easy when you got sun, water, a nice breeze, and some entertaining American coots. Saw some interesting reptiles, although I was only able to get pictures of two.

Panorama shot of the sagebrush below my sites (if you look close you can see a red dot of my car)

 

Great Basin gopher snake

 

Me in the lower sites

Desert horned lizard conserving energy during a crisp dawn

And now on to new adventures. Do I explore Goldfield? Death Valley? Yosemite? The novelty of waking up after 5am? Who knows?