Desert
Desert Survivors NV Desert Trail Dispatches
Desert
Desert Survivors NV Desert Trail Dispatches
This page will have the dispatches from the Desert Relay as they are sent in from the Trip Leaders.
DISPATCH FROM THE 2004 NEVADA DESERT TRAIL RELAY
This page contains Segments L.
DISPATCH FROM THE
2004 NEVADA DESERT TRAIL RELAY
Segment L: Wonder
May 29-31, 2004
By Steve Tabor
Three of us hiked the Wonder route from the segment’s South Trailhead on U.S. Route 50 to the North Trailhead in Dixie Valley. Jerry Goss met us on Route 50 to help with the car shuttle. Jerry had also picked up the GPS unit used by Grant Blocher and David Serviss on the Burnt Hills Segment. It’s been great to have this kind of support from Jerry and Dave Holten at the trailheads.
Bob Flett, Laszlo Nadasdi and I left U.S. 50 in a chill north wind under skies dotted with little cumulus clouds. It had rained in the wee hours then stopped near dawn. It had also rained the previous morning while hikers were doing the Burnt Hills Segment. That was the first rain of the Relay, on its twenty-ninth day. The only other precipitation were a few falls of soft hail on May 11. Relay hikers have been fortunate on that score. We were happy for the storm, for it dropped daytime temperatures to a comfortable level.
Our hike was mostly on jeep trails and roads. The early heat in March had prevented flowers from sprouting, giving us mostly dry ground on the valley crossing near Chalk Mountain, a distinct change from the waves of orange mallow I’d recorded on the initial reconnaissance in 1998. We stopped for an hour and hiked around the mine dumps on Chalk Mountain. There were several shafts, an old loading chute, and several dumps with colorful mineralized rock, some of the best I’ve seen. We hiked 9.6 miles on the first day and camped near a game guzzler just below Badger Flat. The guzzler had water, but a lot of algae. There was good needlegrass and grama grass all around the hills there.
On the second day, we rose to Badger Flat and hiked across it on the old Wonder Road. Laszlo and I looked for the miners’ cemetery that shows on the topo map but saw no trace of it. If it’s there, the graves must be unmarked. Flowers under the pinyons in the canyon were fair. We dayhiked to the back side of Wonder Mountain for lunch and a look at the Wonder Mine, which is now an open pit. No trace of the “2000-foot shaft” that produced Wonder millions of dollars of silver. Some off-roaders had set up camp at the site of the old mill and spent most of the afternoon “plinking”, taking potshots at cans. It was an annoyance. We met one who said that his grandfather had worked the mine so the family comes back every Memorial Day for a reunion.
In the afternoon we hiked down Hercules Canyon on a jeep trail. This one had been bladed sometime since 1998. It turned out to be bladed all the way to Dixie Valley Road, wrecking any semblance of wild country in the canyon. No indication who did it or why, but it was a lot of work and doubtless cost some money. In 1998, the road was so bad that I’d gotten stuck with my 4WD, but it’s now a thoroughfare that even passenger cars could use. We were buzzed by more off-roaders in the canyon. One of them asked if we needed any help and if we’d “yet discovered the wheel”. I refrained from remarking that people who just drive around and won’t hike are “sissies” who are too lazy get out on their own two feet as God intended. The dude was a jovial sort; I think he could have handled my sentiments after his “wheel” remark, but I couldn’t be sure.
Taking the hint of other hikers on this year’s Relay, we camped early. When the sun dropped, I hiked up a side canyon for a couple of hours while Bob and Laszlo rested in the shade. It was a cool and pleasant hike on easy pebble wash. I was daydreaming as I strolled and almost stepped on a beautiful rattlesnake stretched across the wash. He didn’t rattle; probably all of his ancestors who had were killed for rattling. This canyon and its environs saw intensive human use in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. I got to within one mile of the ridgecrest, then turned back, arriving at our camp at almost full dark. It was a beautiful little canyon, a joy to walk after the roads.
In the morning, we hiked out Hercules Canyon on the hardpack bladed road. It turned hot while we did so. We ate lunch in the shade below the cutbank that defines Dixie Valley Wash. We got to the cars at Noon. Jerry Goss was waiting for us with cold drinks.
This was an easy hike, but the hardpack roads were hard on our feet. It would have been easier to hike on horse trails or cross-country, but roads pre-empted the route practically everywhere. This was a great hike for lizards and snakes. We saw two gopher snakes and at least seven kinds of lizards. Lizard sightings were about ten per hour, giving us about 165 individuals for the trip. I’m glad they’re all out there.
I’ve looked at the topo maps and may change the route from Hercules Canyon to the ridge line and the side gulch I walked on the second day. Hercules has a couple of interesting old mine sites, but the route could use a change of pace to get away from some of that road walking. A wash-walk in the lower canyon may also help break the monotony of the road.
That’s not a problem that Bob Lyon will have in the Stillwaters.