2005 Nevada Desert Trail Dispatches
Leader: Steve Tabor
Segment AA: High Rock Canyon
June 9-12, 2005
The High Rock Canyon trip was the first of the final three Desert Trail Relay segments. With ten hikers, it was the most popular of the lot. In terrain it was one of the easiest, but few of us were prepared for the six-hour, 179-mile car shuttle. In this we were aided by Ed Nagel, who joined us on the trip, and Dave Holten, who had already come up from Sparks twice in the previous week to bail out hikers on the Relay. Both had large 4WD rigs, which were needed on the horrendous jeep tracks between the central Sheldon Refuge and the mouth of High Rock.
It had rained the night before. We started backpacking at 2:15 pm under cloudy skies and occasional showers. The long wet Spring of 2005 was continuing. Wildflowers were excellent. We hiked on jeep trails for the first two days, most of it straight up the old immigrant route of 1846. We stopped at the pioneer inscriptions at Mile 3.1 for photographs and a rest. In the evening we camped at Mile 5.4 at the mouth of Pole Canyon.
The camp was cool and humid. Frost lay on our tents in the morning. We found clear water in the stream below. Most of the second day we hiked up the jeep trail in the canyon, crossing the flowing stream many times and enjoying the predictable stratigraphy of the horizontal rhyolite plateaus and their vertical cliff tops. Underneath the rims in many places were white and yellow ash beds. The best were at Yellow Rock Canyon and just downstream.
On the second afternoon we veered off from the pioneer road and hiked east to Cottonwood Canyon under a beautiful sky of fair-weather cumulus. It always looked like it was going to rain, but didn't, until nightfall. We found pools of water in Cottonwood at its start, surrounded by a beautiful green meadow. We followed the alternately dry and wet bed of the canyon through subdued country loaded with wildflowers, camping at a sand bar that had been created in May's big floods. Coyotes howled in the canyon nearby as we bedded down. It was great camp after a long 15-mile day.
We followed the Desert Trail Association map another ten miles on the third day. The route alternated between jeep trails, wild animal trails and cross-country. Wildcat Gorge in the afternoon was a joy, a trench carved deep into lava rock with cool pools, willows, and a neat horse trail. The shallow canyon beyond with its low Utah-style cliffs and deep arroyo was also a joy. We camped that night at a delightful green meadow with water, darting swallows, loud frogs and curious rabbits. It was a restful, peaceful camp where we could catch up on our sleep.
On the last day we visited Cottonwood Spring, which was located in an isolated lava trench filled with green grass, rushes, colorful mushrooms, large currant and serviceberry bushes, and aspen trees. After 35 miles of desert it was wonderful to walk barefoot in the cool grass. In the afternoon we'd discovered that I'd led the group 90 degrees off-course on a wide detour to the north. We corrected this by hiking rapidly over the plateau to the southeast and then to the cars. Even that laborious detour had its attractions: a large burn area grown to beautiful native bunchgrasses and mountain mahogany, a difficult ending to a long but not overly strenuous hike.
At Bateman Spring, Jerry Goss met us with cold drinks and encouragement. Jerry has supported the Relay throughout both May and June. I decided that Bateman Camp in Sheldon Refuge and the nearby Summit Mountain Road would be the new trailhead for the segment, as the road into Cottonwood was too high-centered. We had a leisurely camp with good conversation and fine wine as we waited for the next day's hike to begin.
Segment BB: Sheldon Refuge Segment
June 13-16, 2005
In the morning, Jerry brought in two new hikers from Virgin Valley Campground in the Sheldon Refuge. Li Miao and Julian Holt joined Lynne Buckner, Lawrence Wilson, Laszlo Nadasdi, Ed Nagel and me, all hikers from the previous trip. The seven of us started hiking at 11:30, east from Bateman Camp to a pass on Mahogany Mountain. Unlike the High Rock trip, this four-day backpack in the Refuge would be mostly cross-country with many ups and downs, not one smooth uphill gradient. In elevation gain it would be twice as much work as the last one.
From Mahogany we had an excellent view east into the drainage of Virgin Creek. High craggy mesas, eroded in many forms and tilted this way and that, lay below. All was green except for white tuff beds and brown lava rock. We ate lunch at the pass and marveled at the scenery. This was the first of three climbs of 500 feet or more. The Sheldon is known for its wildlife, especially its big animals. We would not be disappointed.
We found a wild horse trail on the descent into Virgin that led us down to Pothole Spring. The stream there was flowing strongly. More green meadows. Proceeding downstream, within a mile we came upon a herd of sixty wild horses. They broke up into several big and small groups, each with its own large stallion or mare. The horses seemed not to know which way to turn; they'd probably not seen humans in quite awhile. We caught them by surprise and got several good photos of them running. When they'd gone we hiked further downstream where we spotted a coyote. The animal ran up a hill, stopping several times to glance back, giving us a good look at him.
Farther down the trail we found a dead bobcat. It was young, still with spots. I surmised that it had been kicked by a mare when it got too close, but that's just a guess. I was impressed through this stretch by the thickness of native bunchgrasses on the north-facing side of the canyon. Extensive cheat grass (a weed) grew only on south-facing slopes. We camped that night at a wide bend in the stream, the only flat place not densely grown to six-foot-tall sagebrush. We had a great view of Summit Lake Mountain to the southeast, still with thick snow banks.
In the morning we hiked east to Alkali Reservoir which had a lot of water and abundant wildflowers growing along the shore. We hiked 825 feet up the slope to the east, marked "Wild Horse Pasture" on the map, then along the top of it. Views on the way up were excellent. We ate lunch, then climbed farther up onto Rock Spring Table, topping out at 6760'. This was done in a 20 mph wind with gusts to 30. Views were again excellent, though we were tuckered out from the climb. We walked north a mile to a large lake hidden in a sinkhole that showed on the map, an interesting feature in this otherwise sage-covered territory.
The lake was full and overflowing onto nearby grass in the hole. It was about 1/4-mile across. Several of us took a swim in the cold water. It was refreshing, but we didn't stay submerged long except for Lawrence, who is used to colder swims in Britain. The cold wind didn't help either. Lynne and I photographed flowers, especially shooting stars, a mountain species I'd seen in other sinkholes elsewhere on the plateau. I named this "Lake Geneva", after a similar wind-blown lake on the Mogollon Plateau that I visited in the Fall of 1981. Cowboys in the West do have a sense of humor when it comes to standing water.
Later we walked to the east rim of the Table for a look at Onion Lakes, then to the head of Sagebrush Creek. Curious pronghorn watched as we hiked, wondering just what these large humpbacked creatures could be. The DTA map says you can get down into the canyon at the but it doesn't show exactly where. A large dryfall, abundant talus and thick mahogany block the whole upper canyon, but we found a way down off the cliff and over the rocks about a half-mile along the west rim. Before the drop, we found many signs of Native-American use: a rock foundation, lithic scatter and petroglyphs. We also saw pikas, chipmunks and a marmot, residents dating from back in the Ice Age when the Table had a tundra-like climate. In the canyon bottom, we bounced along on rocks and through brush, not good for the feet and ankles. We arrived at East Rock Spring Camp at 7:00 pm, just in time to cook dinner before dark, thoroughly exhausted.
East Rock Spring Camp is one of the gems of the Refuge, a grassy oasis with dense aspen shade and abundant year-round water. As at Cottonwood, we were surrounded by greenery, a welcome contrast to the rocks and sagebrush. We stayed long into the morning, just enjoying the ambience. From the looks of it, the camp had not been used in years. The grass was not tamped down, wheel tracks leading to it were sparse, even the carvings in the aspen were old, only one from 1998 and one from 2002. For all intents and purposes, the camp has been abandoned. Even pronghorn hunters don't want to bother with it; it's too far even to drive, much less walk.
The next day we hiked out the largely unused jeep trail in Sagebrush Canyon. The stream was intermittent. In places meadow grass had grown up solid in the jeep trail and the tracks were difficult to find. In the middle and lower canyon, long stretches of jeep trail had been washed out, with fresh gravel piled four feet high, almost at a level with the terraces on either side, scoured from channels upstream that had been gouged deeper. I GPS'd the worst places and took several photos, some of which I'll submit to Refuge management with a recommendation that the road be closed. It cannot be driven without damage to the meadows and the gravel bed; the land deserves a rest.
The hike down-canyon was pleasant under breezy blue sky with wind-driven cumulus. This was the first hot day of either trip; at one point I measured 82 F. We camped in the lower canyon near Virgin Valley CG after a frantic search for water in the flood-scoured bed, which had been drastically rearranged. We couldn't camp nearby because the terraces had been badly scoured by flood waters, and where they weren't, large anthills occupied all the large tent sites between shrubs. Nighthawks swooped as we bedded down for the night, gorging themselves on the abundant mosquitoes.
On the morning of Day Four, we cruised into the campground and plunged into its main feature, a natural warm pool (85 F.). Jerry Goss met us and drove us back to Bateman to get our cars, then fixed us a big Italian meal that really hit the spot. In the afternoon, while the others took shelter from wind and showers, I explored the upper end of Thousand Creek Gorge near the campground. I decided it was too rough for backpacking, even on the Desert Trail. The next day we would meet more hikers for the final carcamp.
Segment CC: North Border Segment
June 17-19, 2005
The last trip of the Relay was a carcamp, three days of hikes from Virgin Valley Campground to the Oregon border. Thirteen Survivors did various of these hikes, coming and going and coming back again. The longest was the first day's, from the campground to Big Hot Spring near the Sheldon Refuge border. The second went from north of Bog Hot over the Pueblo Mountains to the east and down to near Denio Junction. The third went on a dirt road northeast to the border at the town of Denio. It was a great 28 miles, and a great finish to a very successful Relay.
We set up cars at Bog Hot then hiked toward Thousand Creek Gorge. We were moving fast, for this was a fourteen-mile hike. Near the gorge we turned up a jeep trail and onto the hill above. This climb had more great flowers; colorful blooms stayed with us almost 'til the end of the Relay. There were larkspur, mallow, balsam root, Phacelia, Penstemon and many others. We did a side hike to an overlook of the gorge that provided a spectacular view, 500 feet down. Many of the hikers wanted dayhike it someday. Maybe next year I'll lead a carcamp to do just that.
After lunch we continued on the jeep trail east off the mountain. We found a small ball-like cactus flat to the ground, Pediocactus simpsonii, variously called "plains cactus" or "Simpson's foot cactus", a common grassland species ranging into Idaho and Montana at that elevation. Unfortunately it was past bloom time. At the east rim we had views down onto the valley floor, of lakes left behind by the May floods and of reddish seed heads of cheat grass blowing in the wind. To the northeast was the long black sinuous mesa of Railroad Point, which the DT ascends and crosses. Bog Hot is on the other side.
We hiked quickly across the greasewood valley to the base of the point. It was only two hundred feet to the rim, but steep. Much to our surprise we ran into a trail halfway up that provided an easy ascent. It even had switchbacks. I guessed that it was constructed by the U.S. Army in the old days as a conveyance from Virgin to the base of the Pueblos. An irregular trail went northeast along the rocky mesa in our direction. It could barely be seen on the ground. We hiked east and north toward an obvious drop, blessed by more good flowers. We stopped briefly at a vernal pool showing on the map. It had an inch or two of muddy water and was loaded with little bug larvae swimming around in what was left, soon to evaporate. I named this "Lake Placid". We rested at the next rim, then hiked the trail, still intact, downhill to the next valley.
The last three-mile stretch was glorious! We saw many of the same old flowers all along the way, and thick native grasses, along with cheat. Most striking were vast numbers of four-foot-tall prince's plume (Stanleya) waving in the breeze. Most had bright yellow flowers extending a foot or more at the top of the stalk, making yellow patches all up and down the valley. It was flower heaven. We were indeed fortunate to be here in one of Nevada's most glorious Spring seasons ever.
We staggered to Bog Hot and our cars after 8:00 pm, then fetched the remaining autos and put Humpty back together. Back at the spring, some folks fixed dinner, some drank, and some just got in the hot pools (98 F.) before doing anything else. What a day!. Asleep at 11, in bed the next morning until after sunrise when swooping nighthawks woke me up.
On Saturday we set up another shuttle, then walked north from Bog Hot to a cold springs then east to the Pueblo Mountains. More flowers, even though we were in lower country. Large caterpillars, those of the sphinx moth, were chewing away on pincushion flowers. The country was grown to dense wiry greasewood and budsage, but Ingrid Crickmore still had a field day identifying flowers, some of them new species we hadn't seen before. In the afternoon we started up the Pueblos on a jeep trail that led to the crest. There were more species there, including blooming purple sage, Ephedra viridis with fruiting bodies, lilies (Calochortus), and a rare round-leafed milkweed. I have a picture of Ingrid with handfuls of flower specimens to take home and key. She'll press them into a card file, eventually.
We crested the ridge after resting and consuming electrolytes and snacks. On top we had views of the road below past Chokecherry Spring. The route down Chokecherry Canyon looked steep, so we hiked down easy slopes to the road, gaining a great view north into the valleys behind the Pueblos Mountain front, Alberson and Denio Basins. That view was an inspiration (for next year's Relay in Oregon?). It looked so green in this dynamic year that it resembled the lurid colors of the DTA's Pueblo Mountains Desert Trail Guide, published in 1981. I had thought the colors on that to be an aberration, the result of a primitive four-color printing process, until I'd gotten this view. My previous trips here had been in summer, when yellow grasses dominate the scene.
Below we hopped a fence and walked through chewed-down cattle country. What a difference from the land outside! Cows had cropped all the needlegrass down to within four inches, eating everything above, including all the seed heads. So this is how range gets degraded! In all other places we'd been, native grasses were coming back, their seed heads waving tall in the breeze. We made sure to close the fence gate behind us to keep the cows from straying outside and spoiling more land.
The rest of the day we hiked down past Chokecherry Creek (flowing) and out into the valley on the road. Hikers in front of the pack spotted a deer and a fawn. We convoyed back to Bog Hot to camp that night. Loretta Bauer had driven in to Winnemucca to get new tires and picked up a fine chicken-and-salad dinner for us. Sure beats cooking! At sunset a bunch of us went to the hotter pool upstream where 105-degree F. water compensated for the hungry mosquitoes. Afterward I was tempted to walk back naked in the dark but wore a towel.
The last day was an anti-climax. We spotted cars at Denio, then walked the road into town. Down here the flowers were just about baked dry. We found a few lilies and one deep red poppy, probably an escaped Mexican poppy from the town. Lizards were active on this sunny day. Once again, the weather was holding well. It doesn't get really hot up north except for one month out of the year. Later in the day I measured a high of 79 F.
We hiked toward Denio on Rodeo Drive, named after the famous street in Beverly Hills. There is only a slight resemblance; there are no shops here like those in the latter town, and Beverly has no shot-up dead rabbits (except those on display in fur shops). We took a right on "Sunset Place", named after the Hollywood strip, then walked beside Highway 292 to the Oregon border, marked by a cattle guard. We discovered that the border fence is off the 41-degree mark by about 24 seconds of latitude, an error we chalked up to inferior 19th Century technology, since our GPS units are always correct. Denio residents drove by us with some interest. There was nobody walking on the street except us.
At the border we cracked open the champagne. We drank (or spilled) it all. The hikers presented certificates of appreciation to Jerry Goss and me for our efforts, me for designing and promoting the Desert Trail, and Jerry for supporting almost all the segments with shuttle services, meals, beer and GPS units. Lawrence Wilson introduced the First Annual Desert Survivors Travel-Writing Award for my inspiring description of the formerly pristine "Green Meadow" on the Kumiva Segment. He read my lurid praise of this wilderness locality from my guidebook, then offered a half-gallon of dark brown water culled from the meadow after wayward cattle had made it their home for several seasons. Some of this was drunk and some was poured through the cattle guard at the border along with the remaining champagne as a symbolic "giving-back" to the desert and a pledge that we'll be back (next year?) to finish the job. I thanked Lawrence for the gesture and lamented that the number and weight of new cow flops at the meadow prevented a full appreciation of my error. We were left only to imagine the magnitude of the problem. My book needs a rewrite.
After the ceremony, it was on to home for most. I went back to Bog Hot to clean up my notes and do new GPS work. It was a grand end to a great Relay, 99 miles in eleven days, just before summer came down. I will remember it always.