Moments in Dirt and Ink

Caliente Field Office BLM ( map link ) I picked up three brochures for petroglyph sites at the Caliente Field Office including the one for Crystal Wash. Between the rough location of #98 Crystal Wash Petroglyphs on the Ely District Recreation Opportunity Guide (on the wrong side of the highway) and the description in the brochure, which referred to mile markers that have almost entirely vanished from the highway, I guessed my starting location was a little further down an unnamed road than geocache GC14GG1: I'd Go a Mile for a Smile-Elephant Poop . It is another one saying you could take your mamma's Jetta down the road, and this road is smooth. The sagebrush down the middle still provided some very audible bumping and the faint wash near the start could get worse over time. Still, I got to the end and found a small dirt parking area and a register. (Infrastructure! Confirmation of correct location!) The register seemed to think one could expect to find brochures in the b...

Caliente Field Office BLM ( map link ) Camping at the edge of Big Rocks Wilderness by the "Welcome to Mecca!" sign, I decided that my goal for the day would be the Big Rocks Wilderness high point, which is also the North Pahroc Range high point. However, I did not want to walk up the road I had driven, nor did I want to risk driving it again with my inappropriate car, so I wouldn't be starting from the points west of the unnamed peak where the most successful attempts have originated. I would be traveling from the south, probably along a ridge. The one person who had traveled similarly from the north indicated that this was some of the most taxing terrain they'd been on. There is also a lower benchmark that would have been a more reasonable goal from my starting point, but no, it was not mine. I've been getting high points and here was another 4 miles off and I had all day to do it. I wanted another high point. Sign to welcome folks to Mecca. It's not...

Caliente Field Office BLM After stopping by the Oak Springs Trilobite Site a second time , I had a relaxed program of travel aiming at Mecca, #19 on the Ely District Recreation Opportunity Guide. It has a toilet and picnicking, so it would be easy to find although these circles aren't always well placed. (Crystal Wash Petroglyphs is marked on the wrong side of the highway, for instance.) It's not far, so I added in stops for a couple geocaches on the way. They were supposed to be stops during the first pass along this road. This time, I hit the "toggle talking" on c:geo so I could actually stop in the right place for these. It's annoying, but the Lincoln County High School radio station kept finding dead spots leaving nothing at all for my driving entertainment. I'd Go a Mile for a Smile-Yuccy Dead : Says it's "on a road you could take your mamma's Jetta." This really is a good road except for a little washboarding and part of the road t...

Caliente Field Office BLM ( map link ) I was off for a day in the city, mostly library time and a stop at the BLM field office. I'd also found a few feet of trail to follow in a loop about the city. First, on the way in, I had to stop and find a geocache hidden in 2001 , partly because it is so old. (I don't think much of the current craze to "refresh the gameboard". Let the old ones remain.) Then it was off to the park, then, since there was plenty of time, I poked around the local cemeteries. Newman Canyon There is quite a big area to park beside the highway here, but no trail to get up high where the geocache is. They've given it a high terrain rating because of loose rocks and steep slopes and they aren't kidding. I found a way along some very minor ridging that did look like it gets walked from time to time. The view at the top was quite rewarding. I'd spotted this canyon from the top of Grey Dome, but it's more interesting to see closer...

Caliente Field Office BLM ( map link ) Nevada boasts the first "nationally recognized" OHV trail system in their Silver State Trail . I suspect this is a similar status to a National Recreation Trail, but for motor vehicles. It spiders the area of Lincoln County between US-93 and NV-318. There are five developed trailheads that also serve as small campgrounds. I stopped at the Chief Mountain South Trailhead with the plan to hike to the top of Grey Dome. Since my Ely District Recreation Opportunity Guide says there is hiking at this spot, I expected to see some designated hiking trails shown on the sign, but there are only the practice trails for motorcycles. It is all unstructured hiking. Or on roads and ATV trails as most of my planned hike would be. The road past the trailhead still looks rather Scion ready, at least to the saddle. I headed out along a connector from the trailhead sign to the road I came in on. It gets visibly rougher, but I could still drive it ...

Caliente Field Office BLM ( map link ) I spotted the trilobites on the list of BLM recreation sites on my Ely District Recreation Opportunities Guide and drew some little bright lines around it so I wouldn't forget to stop at #18. There's actually two signs to help the public find the spot and a short piece of maintained road to parking with a toilet, trash, picnic tables, information signs, register, even tools. Well, the public has been a bit too hard on the tools, so there was not actually a rock hammer when I looked. They suggest you have one for best experience. And eye protection. And you are allowed to keep common stuff like plants and trilobites so long as it is for your own personal having. I haven't got a hammer so I am dependent on what might already be visible. (I decided against bringing along the hatchet that doesn't get any use.) Parking and picnicking and information. Oh, and there's Joshua trees . Beside the sign and register, there...

Caliente Field Office BLM Location: Shingle Spring and corral I decided to head over to Wayne E. Kirch Wildlife Management Area, which my Ely District recreation opportunities map indicated had wildlife viewing, but was less optimistic about hiking. The wildlife viewing is primarily the birds that come to rest on the reservoirs, but also the birds that come to the other environments near the reservoirs because water is nearby. Well, I had a reservoir in miniature right where I was in the form of Shingle Spring. I would "practice birdwatching". I actually spent most of the day writing, but I popped over at a few times to see who was flying by. The dark-eyed Junco is by far the most common bird. This one is male. I think. There's plenty of lighter female dark-eyed Juncos , too. The first birds back to the spring after I scared them off are the really common ones that I'm sure have been scooting around all the juniper trees. Ward Mountain was particularly f...

Caliente Field Office BLM ( map link ) I headed over to one of those maintained roads indicated on the trailhead sign at Sheep Pass Canyon. It is probably called Shingle Pass Road, but there's no sign. Nevada really isn't too worried about signs. You can see there's a two lane gravel road over there as you approach. There aren't any others for miles. You know it's the one you want. Right? I followed it to an old corral, which is generally a good bet for a dispersed campsite, to hike the high point of the Far South Egans Wilderness. I'm afraid I was lacking imagination for a hike in this wilderness and settled for what is rapidly becoming the usual route for bagging its high point. The good road over Shingle Pass. We do get a sign for the South Egan Range Wilderness (established 2006) on the left, but none for the Far South Egans Wilderness (established 2004) on the right. I almost flinched. I almost decided against doing this hike. The descriptions, p...

Caliente Field Office BLM Bristlecone Field Office BLM (green lines, map link ) DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 A new day and time to continue on with Plan B, up to the high point in the morning then as far along as possible to Schoolhouse Spring. Since I hadn't got over the last little ridge to a large flat for my camp, I had to pack up before going up. I felt like I had a lot of water still, so I cooked breakfast leaving my pancakes for the next day. A changing terrain to face later. An Uinta chipmunk still out gathering for winter. Are the little seeds of the white fir part of the gathering? The map marks pinnacles along the little ridge, and here is one. The flat does look like it would have been a great place to camp so long as it wasn't too windy. I dumped my gear among some logs and had a big ridge to go over. Some 600 feet up, 200 down, and another 400 up again to the top.

Bristlecone Field Office BLM Caliente Field Office BLM (redder lines, map link ) DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 I took the weekend to write, then Monday to post and shop and find information. In Ely, you can get kerosene and denatured alcohol from the ranch store and white gas from the supermarket, so I could keep my stoves running. I didn't find anything of interest in the sports shop. The Forest Service district office is kind with water and has a spigot that doesn't go off in winter. Then I ran south to avoid weather. I was aiming at a spot behind (east of) Lund, but landed along an unmaintained, but well used, access road for the South Egan Range Wilderness. I walked the road to Sheep Pass Well and decided I could drive it. There was more thumping than expected, so that's as far as I got. I suppose I got just far enough south, because I watched it rain over Lund as I ate in the dry. Special bonus weather passing over Lund picture from the day before this...