2005 Nevada Desert Trail Dispatches        

Segment Q: Carson-Wildhorse
Leader Steve Tabor

May 7-9, 2005

The start of this year’s Nevada Desert Trail Relay presented problems. Heavy rains had turned dirt roads and ground into a sloppy mess. Bob Flett and I met at Toulon on I-80 near Lovelock after a night of rain. We positioned Bob’s car on East Road at the segment’s end, then drove in my car toward the starting trailhead at the base of the Stillwater Mountains, where we’d left off the previous June on last year’s relay. We never made it. My car slipped and slid on the road over Wildhorse Pass, then skidded in 6-inch mud down a particularly nasty slope on the downside. We continued on in the valley on flat slick mud until we were stopped by a running stream in a three-foot-wide, one-foot-deep channel bisecting the road. We left the car right there and hiked east over the mud toward the Desert Trail route, hoping to intersect it at Packard Wash. That would be the start of this year’s relay.

We labored for three hours over slick mud that squished under our feet. The whole muddy valley was saturated with water. We usually sunk down two-three inches, except on the tops of mud hills and on the sides of running streams, where six inches was the norm. I was reminded of the Eskimos and their “seventeen words for snow”. We quickly identified the different subtle conditions in various muddy substrates and modified our hiking accordingly. It was a unique experience. Squishy mud, sloppy mud, mud-dry-underneath, slick uphills, slicker downhills, cryptogam-with-silt-underneath, etc. The best footing was in the bottoms of washes (flowing or not) and on formerly hard mud-cracked playa surfaces (flooded or not). Both remained firm.

We headed for the line of sand dunes ringing the playa, where we had a cruise of relative ease on compact sand, which was heaven. We camped early and pitched our tents just in time for a heavy afternoon shower, which we mostly slept through. The sun shone brightly afterward and we thought the storm was over.

In the morning it was clouded in again. We crossed the remainder of the valley on slick mud. Packard Wash was flowing four feet deep. Judging from nearby swept-over terraces, it had been eight feet deep the day before. We ate lunch at Wildhorse Spring. In the afternoon, we backpacked up over Wildhorse Peak. A fresh series of showers with cold sharp winds hit us about two-thirds of the way up. We put on all of our rain gear, including gloves, and covered our packs. We crested the ridge at 5:00 pm, then headed down rapidly to get a camp. Each of us found a clearing barely large enough to fit a tent, but we were glad for it.

The third morning, the rain stopped long enough for us to break camp. We headed down Horsehead Canyon, which had flowing water in several places. We emerged from the canyon by 9:15 am and got to the cars at 9:45. On the way out I realized I’d been talking intensely to Bob and had completely missed seeing the game guzzler we’d recorded on the reconnaissance trip in 1999. I’d also missed the four-foot granite bedrock drop adjacent to it. Hmmm… Incipient Alzheimer’s? On down the fan we began to see pieces of the guzzler: twisted aluminum chunks, rebar, shards of fiberglass. In the intervening years a flashflood had come down Horsehead and ripped the guzzler out! It had been made of metal, eight feet on a side, raised three feet above the ground, with a tank measuring 8x4x2 feet. All gone. The four-foot drop had been filled in by fresh gravel. We’d walked right over the site and never noticed it.

Since my car was stranded on the other side of the mountain below the squishy mud slope, Bob drove me into town to get food for the next two segments. We had a celebration meal at a restaurant, then he dumped me off at Toulon and waved goodbye. I hiked into the desert, pitched my tent, and dried out my clothes and gear in bright sunshine and a dynamic fresh post-storm wind. It was a wonderful end to a wet and difficult segment.
 

Segment R: Humboldt Crossing
Leader Steve Tabor

May 10-11, 2005

In the morning, At-large Director Jerry Goss walked out from Toulon to greet me. Jerry is providing logistical support for the Relay this year, showing up with his vehicle to help shuttle hikers, and downloading and freshening our GPS units, with which we are documenting both route and check stations for the whole Desert Trail, as we did last year. I was glad to see him.

Later on Steven Shigley showed up at the exit, and the three of us drove in Jerry’s rig to the Carson Road to get my stranded car. I was amazed to see the mudhole we slid down turned to dry ground after only three days. It’s likely that the previous afternoon of sunshine and wind had done the trick. We ferried my car to the start point on East Road, then Jerry left Steven and me to our fate in the still wet valley.

The whole sky was clouded over as we started west on the south side of the Humboldt River. Our objective was to hike the desert south of the river, cross the river and the mud flats and swamps to its north, then hike sand berms and open desert on the north side of the valley to Toulon. The river was now flowing due to the recent rains, but we couldn’t tell about the mud flats. If the Irrigation District was letting water down its drainage canals, we could be swamped. Nothing to do but proceed and see how far we could get. After the success of the mud crossing in Carson, I had high hopes that we could get through, unless the water was really deep and the channels had turned to quicksand.

We hiked for nine miles on the desert floor. There was some mud and we had to cross a few channels. There was nowhere for water to drain in the initial part, but after a major canal, we could see that it was serving as a drain for the rest of the desert floor. It was catching all the water, so the rest of the surface was solid. The river was accessible. Recent drought years had killed all the tamarisk south of it; we walked through easily to the place where we’d crossed on the reconnaissance trip in 2000. The river was flowing one foot deep across a series of gravel bars. Elsewhere it was deeper. Everything was working out.

I hadn’t used a GPS on the original recon, so we had difficulty locating my most important check station north of the river. That was an important point, because all subsequent bearings to get across to the other side of the valley would be calculated from it. That point, “Brown Tank”, turned out to be fully one-half mile off-line. We located it after some wandering around, then camped there.

As usual, the Humboldt Bottoms had great wildlife. A burro wandered into our camp. So did a coyote. Curlews called from the nearby swampy river. Pelicans flew overhead. Red-wing blackbirds were in full mating mode, calling constantly and showing off their epaulets. Three years of drought had forced the typical shore birds to abandon the lakes, but the area around the river itself was still lively.

For the rest of the crossing, we followed a straight bearing of 320 degrees to Humboldt Lake, which was dry. Its various inlets were also dry. To accurately record the mapped route for Jerry Goss, Steven and I “simulated” the route, hugging the shore “as if” the lakes were full, though we could have just strode across the valley on dry ground if we wanted to. We found our way to a critically located sand berm that rose above the general level. This showed on the map. Then we followed an old jeep trail from there through the Humboldt State Wildlife Refuge to the north. Our last four miles near Toulon Lake were a cruise in open desert in a fresh west wind.

At the end, Steven drove me from Toulon to my car. We discovered it had been broken into. The battery had been stolen, along with all my food. We rushed into Lovelock and got to the auto parts store just as it closed. The owners let me in and sold me a battery. Twenty minutes later, we were back at my car and got it running. Steven left and I went back to town and bought enough food for the next segment. I went to the Sheriff’s Station and made out a police report, then headed back out to the desert. During the night, the sky cleared off. The storms were finally over.
 

S: Trinity-Bluewing Segment
Leader Steve Tabor

May 12-15, 2005

On Thursday, May 12, five hikers met me at Toulon for the third Relay segment, across the Trinity Range and Granite Springs Valley. This one would be 33 miles in four days. By now the roads were dry. Jerry Goss helped us set up a car shuttle, then we were off on our hike.

The weather was delightful: sunny and warm. On the first day we crossed the remainder of Humboldt Valley amidst fresh breezes and colorful flowers. We stopped by a series of tufa towers, two of which had raptor nests made of sticks and branches. The four-day schedule allowed us frequent rests and time to look at the flowers, even “belly flowers” growing in sand and volcanic cinders. We camped in the foothills of the Trinity Range in a brushland that had been largely taken over by cheatgrass. Here and there we found native bunchgrasses, which was heartening. By the time we left camp, even the cheat grass seemed beautiful, its red seed heads waving in the wind.

We got water at a game guzzler, then headed up a canyon carved in volcanic lava and tuff. After lunch, we crossed a beautiful patch of brush and grass that was entirely native. In this place I had seen a rare cactus, Parish’s club cholla, in 1999. We found it again this time, five plants. All were battered by recent drought, but still alive. They’ll come back to full size, with runners along the ground three feet long like before. The pair of prairie falcons nesting at Junction Buttes were also still there, as five years ago, now joined by a hawk. We climbed 860 feet to the top of Trinity ridge and made camp on soft ground with fine views both east and west.

On the morning of Day Three, we did a dayhike along the ridge to the north, 2.5 miles to Trinity Peak (7337'). We saw several pronghorn on the hike, which was mostly a cruise along the crest, excellent “sky-walking”. We also spotted a snake and several lizards, finally out now that it was sunny. After enjoying the view fifteen miles west to the Sahwave Range, we placed a peak register and returned to camp. Two of our hikers, Stacy Goss and Spencer Berman, would be doing the next segment over there, so getting that view was especially inspiring for them.

In the afternoon, we dropped steeply down off the south side of the ridge to Lowry Well, the most important natural spring in the area. We reached it at 2:20 pm and proceeded to dip and pump water. The well had filled in quite a bit since I’d first visited in 1998. It needs some work. Algae was growing in full sunlight, so we had to be careful while dipping and filtering. With another gallon or two each, we headed out west toward the sunset.

It was still 15 miles to the cars. We hiked six of them in what was left of the afternoon. It was difficult hiking directly into the broiling sun, but we managed. We had a great camp far out in the valley, surrounded by open space and a dynamic sky full of Altocumulus clouds. Burros and pronghorn were all around us, both evening and morning. Coyotes howled. After the trains and roads of the Humboldt, the silence and peace of this valley were a blessing.

The next day we started early to hike the final nine miles. A lot of the valley was grown to untrampled cryptogamic soil, but some ground had taken a beating from sheep grazing; only old tufts of native Indian ricegrass attested to a grassland in the pre-sheep days. We hiked directly west toward a PVC pipe “tower” that Dave Holten and I had erected in 2003 to guide hikers in and tell them when to change their bearing from west to northwest. Sure enough, it was there, right where we’d left it at Mile 29.8. It had lost its pretty pink ribbons and was leaning over in the wind, but it had withstood the test of time, testimony to the power of engineering.

We reached the cars at 1:30 pm. Jerry came out to meet us. It had been a great hike under big wide skies on mostly dry ground. None of the route is formal Wilderness, but it sure felt like Wilderness to us. Like lots of Nevada, the land was largely empty of humans and full of wildlife.

Four of us left the trailhead, but Stacy and Spencer would be back to do Bob Lyon’s three hikes and would carry the Survivors’ Desert Trail pennant forward. Watch this space for more dispatches from the Desert Trail as we continue northward.