One Year Ago Today: Some Talus Up Close, a Lake in the Humboldt Sink, and Bonus Fall Colors

It was a fall day, and while driving out to my field site near Winnemucca I stopped for a hike. I got up high enough to see the water in the Humboldt Sink quite clearly (although way off in the distance), and I clambered over piles of talus. The tallish cheatgrass and possibly an ephedra bush are showing their fall colors, though the cheatgrass takes on this straw yellow color by mid June, and keeps showing it until it regenerates itself from seed sometime in the spring.

And here I am, on top of part of the talus, with a great deal of foreshortening going on so the hill seems nearly flat, and the nicely filled but not overflowing Humboldt Sink is in the background. My Jeep can be seen as a vague dot between talus and lake about half way between the center and right of the photo and not far above the vertical center. Water in the desert is always a precious thing, and it's always something worth stopping for.

Somewhat unrelated: I stopped along the Truckee River before making it to that rocky perch above the Humboldt Sink and took a few photos of bright yellow leaves.

Links: Field tripping in Nevada, mostly along I-80 and Highway 50

A River Runs through It [link to download], ESW 2016, E-59 NBMG: Truckee River Reno to Pyramid Lake

1915 Pleasant Valley earthquake centennial field trip guidebook: A public field trip to visit the largest earthquake in Nevada's history [link to download] E-58 NBMG: 50 miles south of Winnemucca

Fire and Ice—Geology of the Mount Rose quadrangle, Lake Tahoe, and the Carson Range [link to download pdf], ESW 2015, E-57 NBMG: Galena Creek Visitor Center to Incline Village

Carson Rocks! A Sesquicentennial Celebration of some of our Capital City's Geological High Points [link to download pdf], ESW 2014, E-56 NBMG: around Carson City

Geo- and Eco-Mapping around DRI (The Great Altered Rock Walking Tour) [link download pdf], 2014, E-55, NBMG: around DRI.

Mapping the Geology around the Desert Research Institute and Truckee Meadows Community College [pdf], ESW 2013, E-53, NBMG: around DRI.

"Tuff All Over": Exploring Faulted Volcanic Terrain in the Painted Hills, Virginia Mountains, West of Pyramid Lake [pdf], ESW 2012, E-52, NBMG: near Pyramid Lake.

"Life's a Beach": In Search of Ancient Shorelines and Volcanoes in the Grimes Point and Lahontan Mountains Area [pdf], ESW 2011, E-51, NBMG: near Fallon.

Geo-tripping in Nevada [pdf], NBMG map guide to many or most of the NBMG field trip guides in Nevada through E-50.

In search of Tufa, Tuff, and Tough Rocks [link to download pdf], ESW 2010, E-50, NBMG: stops are east of Pyramid Lake; trip guide includes Reno to Pyramid Lake, Pyramid Lake to Wadsworth, Pyramid Lake to Brady's Hot Springs, Brady's Hot Springs to Reno.

Digging Deeper into the Comstock [link to download pdf], ESW 2009, E-48, NBMG: Reno to Gold Hill.

No Child Left Inside: A field trip for Families and Rockhounds [link to download pdf], ESW 2008, E-47, NBMG: stops are near Fallon, east of Fallon, north of Fallon, and in the Truckee River Canyon along I-80; road guide runs from Reno to east of Fallon, Fallon to Trinity (junction of I-80 and 95), and Trinity to Reno.

Taking the Pulse of the Earth [link to download pdf], ESW 2007, E-46, NBMG: south of Reno (Slide Mountain, Steamboat, and Virginia Foothills; the latter two not available to public).

Rockin' Along the River [link to download pdf], ESW 2006, E-45 NMBG: Truckee River Verdi to Wadsworth

The great Highway 50 rock tour [link to download], ESW 2005, E-44 NBMG: Fallon to Middlegate

The Frenchman lake frolic [link to download], ESW 2004, E-43 NBMG: Frenchman Lake area, California, west of NV-CA border.

Get out, stay out, and stay alive [link to download], ESW 2003, E-42 NBMG: north of Reno towards Pyramid Lake.

In search of "the right tuff" but you can just "take it for granite" [link to download], ESW 2002, E-41 NBMG: north of Reno and to the west toward northern end of Red Rock Road.

Fossils and Ancient Lakes [link to download pdf], ESW 2001 field trip #2, E-40, NBMG: fossils near Nightingale.

Peavine Peak: Geology, plants, and mining history [link to download], ESW 2001 field trip #1, E-39, NBMG: Peavine.

Exploring east of the summit: A field trip guide to Steamboat Springs, Lake Tahoe, and the Comstock area [link to download pdf], ESW 2000, E-38 NBMG: Steamboat Springs, Lake Tahoe, Comstock.

Geology along America's loneliest highway [link to download pdf], ESW 2000 E-37 NBMG: Carson to Sand Mountain.

What's shakin' in the neighborhood? -- Road log [link to download pdf], ESW 1999 field trip #2, E-34 NBMG:  Reno, Mt. Rose fan/pediment, to Genoa fault scarp.

Turbulent times in the Truckee Meadows [link to download pdf], ESW 1999 field trip #1, E-33 NBMG: UNR to Verdi to Crystal Peak Mine.

Ancient lakes and volcanoes near Fallon: Field trip for families and rockhounds [link to download pdf], ESW 1998, E-28 NBMG: Fallon, Grimes Point, Soda Lake.

Link to NBMG's entire Educational series; most (all?) are available to download.

INQUA 2003 - Elko to Reno, Wadsworth Amp, Lone Mtn hwy 50, Reheis - no viewing online at Google books

Geothermal energy helps power Nevada | Elko Daily Free Press - Brady's Hot Spring, Beowawe, and "Hot Hole" in Elko

The Stories Behind I-80s Exit Sign Names - Part 1 | Backyard Traveler by Rich Moreno - various info about signs and areas, e.g., Nightingale and Brady's Hot Springs

Touring California and Nevada hot springs | Matt C. Bischoff - Brady's Hot Springs reaches 209*F (and other tidbits)

High Water Across the West: The Truckee River

Returning once again to my spring mini-series about all the rivers and lakes that are at higher levels than I've seen in quite awhile (most recent post), I decided this time to show a few pics of the Truckee River, which I drive by quite frequently. Actually, I drive by four times a month unless I happen to bypass Reno by taking another route: 1) across the Black Rock Desert, 2) via Wadsworth to Pyramid Lake and northward (this route is currently impassable because spring floods washed out the road), or 3) over the mountains from the Pyramid Lake highway to Highway 395 (when having to turn around because the preferred road was washed out north of Sutcliffe).

The first photo was taken at a scenic overlook near Patrick along I-80, looking to the southeast. The river is high between us and the dark brown mass of intrusive dacite that forms a synform known as Giant's Throne (you can read a little about this feature here or purchase the field guide here).

Here (above), from the same location, I zoomed in on the river just south of I-80. The trees were just getting their spring leaves and were bright yellowish green.

After a bit, I pulled off at the westernmost Fernley exit and drove south into Wadsworth, a small town along old highway 40 (which is not signed 40 anywhere in Nevada, afaik). These photos, above and below, were taken at a bridge over the Truckee in the eastern part of Wadsworth.

I zoomed in on the water roiling downstream from a cottonwood tree sitting farther out in the water than usual.

I couldn't resist a photo of this old church. Once upon a time, while in high school or early college, I painted a watercolor of a similar church located back east in northern Virginia. I'm still fascinated by the style — not sure why.

Unlike some other rivers in the west, the Truckee was nowhere near impacting the old highway 40 bridge from below.

The railroad bridge spans the Truckee less than 50 meters away from the highway bridge.

For some reason, this view looking downstream reminded me of swamps in southeast. Maybe it's just the way the trees were sitting out in the river.

While down on the river between the two bridges, I grabbed one more shot of trees out in the river. And after standing there for a few minutes, I remembered I had to get back on the freeway. 😢

All photos were taken on 14May2017. The river is still high.

High Water Across the West: Rye Patch Dam and the Humboldt Sink

Rye Patch Dam on April 19th. The water in Rye Patch Reservoir is high, but not at the high water mark that can be seen just past the spillway.

I'm moving slowly on this mini-series about the Humboldt River while working essentially 12-hour days and while (hopefully) recovering from some long-lasting bug I caught on the road or out in Elko more than two months ago. Also, my current work schedule of  9 to 10 days in a row gives me 2 to 3 days off that don't involve driving, so my off days tend to be filled with chores and not that much writing. Anyhoo, there I was traveling south on I-80 past the big bend at Humboldt Station, where I had stopped to take a few photos of the water in the Pitt-Taylor Reservoirs, when I decided—rather spontaneously—to drive down to Rye Patch Dam. As you can see from the first photo, the reservoir is high, but not quite to the high water mark.

Rye Patch Reservoir and Majuba Hill.

Here we're looking just west of north across a shallows, and we can see Majuba Hill just right of center in the distance. The main, deeper part of the reservoir is long and linear where it follows a canyon cut by the river into Lake Lahontan sediments.

The same view in June, 2016, from Google Earth.

A few Western Grebes swim in the shallows.

A closer view of one grebe.

I couldn't resist this view of the Humboldt Range.

Snow-capped Star Peak hides behind clouds. The Cordex Pit of the Florida Canyon Mine operations might be barely visible below Star Peak.

After my brief sojourn at the Rye Patch Dam overlook, I proceeded back to the interstate, speeding ever southward and then southwestward as the road made another broad bend near Lovelock. I was shocked at what I saw when I drove past Granite Point.

The Humboldt Sink had water in it!

At first, I thought it might be a mirage, and although these photos don't really do justice to it, it was indeed water, a small lake that has persisted, at least through my last drive by the area a week ago on June 11th.

A closer view of the Humboldt Sink and the West Humboldt Range.

And that's all for now, time for work! I've got a few pictures of even more water from another trip, but I can't promise when I'll get to it!

High Water Across the West: The Humboldt River at Winnemucca and Humboldt Station

When I started putting these photos together—while thinking about our last post about the Humboldt River in Carlin Canyon—I somehow (and quite erroneously) figured I could throw a whole bunch of high-water Humboldt River photos together in one blog post. The thing is, I have way too many, from several different localities and a few different days, and I hope to collect a few more before the water ebbs. So for today, we'll stick with these two spots, which I visited while driving I-80 from Elko to Reno on April 19th. The first shot looks westward toward Blue Mountain from the westbound exit onto West Winnemucca Blvd (exit 176).

The flooding in Winnemucca was really quite extensive when I drove through on April 11th (no photos) and then again on the 19th: several backyards and a few basements or first floors of houses near the defunct "Barrick Arms Apartments" were under water. The water had receded incompletely when I saw it last (May 28th).

These first pics show the Humboldt River's floodplain looking more like a marshy lake than it's usual dry self. Water level was slightly lower on April 19th than when I first saw it on the 11th.

Here's a phone-camera panorama, with Blue Mountain way off on the left and Winnemucca Mountain taking up the right half of the photo.

This Google Maps Street View image, a flashback to 2011, shows a more typical appearance of the same panorama, albeit from October rather than spring.

And just because, I've included a picture centered on Winnemucca Mountain. It's a prominent feature and a landmark for miles and miles. If you look closely, you'll see the two-toned "W" painted on its southeastern slope.

On that same day (the 19th), I pulled off I-80 at Humboldt House (exit 138, marked "Humboldt") and drove old Highway 40 back toward Imlay.

I crudely spliced together two or three photos looking northwest across what I thought was Rye Patch Reservoir.

It turns out that the entirety of the water seen in these photos is contained within the Upper and Lower Pitt-Taylor Reservoirs.

Here we see Majuba Hill behind blue water in the Lower Pitt-Taylor Reservoir. The light beige horizontal line between the water and Majuba are bluffs underlain by Lake Lahontan's Sehoo Formation. A narrow part of Rye Patch Reservoir proper runs between us and those bluffs, but we can't really see it, even though the water is running high.

Here we can see both the Lower and Upper Pitt-Taylor Reservoirs. The Lower is closest to us; the Upper is beyond the horizontal pale beige line separating the two bodies of water. The wide upper part of Rye Patch Reservoir lies not far beyond the Upper Pitt-Taylor, hidden from us by some irregular low hills. Off in the distance, we're looking at pointed, snow-covered King Lear Peak, part of the Jackson Mountains. The 8923-foot-high peak (2720 m) is about 45 miles away.

High Water Across the West: The Humboldt River in Carlin Canyon — With the Carlin Canyon Unconformity!

Well, there we have it: the Carlin Canyon unconformity with the Humboldt River running nearly bankfull on April 11th of this year.

Looking downstream, back toward the tunnels, we're actually still looking at the unconformity, but it's cropping out poorly on the slope below the tilted limestone beds of the Pennsylvanian-Permian Strathearn Formation.

I went ahead and cropped the best photo I took so we could zoom in on the unconformity in it's classic exposure, and then drew a line right along the contact.

The Strathearn lies unconformably over the near-vertical (to locally overturned) Mississippian-Pennsylvanian Diamond Peak Formation, which is sometimes mapped as the equivalent Tonka Formation in this area.

Zoom in on this feature with a GigaPan by Ron Schott. And if you click the Google Earth link below his GigaPan, you can view the feature *and* the GigaPan in Google Earth!

A Watering Hole Bites the Dust: Water Hole #1

Water Hole #1 in Golconda, Nevada — a bar made famous in the late 1970s by an industrious pig, Waterhole Ike — closed sometime within the last two to three years, before I had a chance to stop by and check out their beer collection.

Water Hole #1 and attached grocery store in March, 2015.

The bar and store during better times: June, 2012.

Zooming in on the bar.

Note the boarded-up windows.

A view of part of the motel next door.

The rest of the motel.

Part of the motel in June, 2012.

Read more about Golconda and Waterhole Ike:
A Visit to Often Overlooked Golconda - Backyard Traveller, Rich Moreno
Waterhole Ike - Howard Hickson's Histories
The illustrious past of Golconda - RGJ.com
Mike's Water Hole - FB page

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And, by the way, the stories about Waterhole Ike remind me of a story told by a former colleague of mine, who — back in the old days — once saw a pig walk into a bar up in northern Idaho (or maybe it was Montana? or Colorado??). The bartender or a friend of the pig grabbed a beer (can or bottle, I'm not sure which; brand, I'm not sure of that, either), opened it, and held it for the pig, who immediately guzzled it. The colleague, rather dumbfounded by the incident, asked about this phenomenon and was told that the pig saunters in to the bar about the same time every day and has a beer. (Story verified by another former colleague.)

The Beginning of an El Niño Trip: North-Central and Western Nevada

An El Niño has supposedly set in (starting when, exactly, I'm not sure). And if precipitation continues to be anything like it has been during the last several weeks, I hope it's here for the the long haul, that is, into the winter.

Rain shower in the northern part of the East Range near Winnemucca, NV, looking SW. Photo taken May 17th, 12:03 pm. The highest, roundish mass on the left is probably Dun Glen Peak.

Rain showers in the Eugene Mountains to the east of the East Range, looking west. Photo taken May 17th, 12:10 pm.

The low hills of the southern Pah Rah Range, as seen from the JA Nugget, looking NE. Photo taken May 17th, 4:35 pm.

March 2015 ENSO discussion: El Niño is here
NOAA, March 5th.

Scientists Suggest a Strong El Nino Is Possible. Why Should You Care?
The Weather Channel, May 14th.

El Nino Delivers Drought-Busting but Flooding Rain to Texas; California May be Next
AccuWeather.com, May 19th.

With El Niño likely, what climate impacts are favored for this summer?
NOAA, May 28th.

Siberian Haze in North-Central Nevada

It is often — more commonly than in the past, IMO — hazy or dusty in north-central Nevada where I routinely work and often travel, here and there across basins and over ranges. And in summer and fall (and probably much earlier this year than usual due to the abnormal Californian and western drought) the basins will often fill with thin and wispy to thick and dense smoke from wildfires. I was a little surprised though, when I noticed little wisps of what looked like smoke coming from the northwest early on the morning of April 18th.

In this view of the Owyhee Bluffs and Jake Creek Mountain, the reddish sunrise looks a little smokey to me. Photo taken 18Apr15 from Location 1.

For all photo and a few geographic locations, see the map embedded below.

In this next, closer view of the same cliff and the Midas Trough to the south (the lowlands to the right of the highest cliff), the possible smoke is harder to see, though the lower part of this sunrise photo shows the same red-orange glow as the first photo.

Mostly gratuitous sunrise photo, taken 18Apr15 photo from Location 2.

Here, below, is a similar view of the Midas Trough in denser smoke, taken from a bit farther away on the next afternoon — the first photo was from 26.5 miles, the second from 14 miles,  and this third is from 20 miles. By this time, I knew that a broad bank of smoke had moved in...but from where?

Photo taken 19Apr15 from Location 3.

I turned around (below) at the same location, impressed by how much smoke was hanging in the air between the Sonoma Range and I. That's Sonoma Peak at 9396 ft (2864 m) in the center.

Photo taken 19Apr15 from Location 3, looking southwest. It's about 16.5 miles to Sonoma Peak as the raven flies.

I'm not sure which day I found out that the relatively dense smoke was coming all the way from fires in Siberia, but I surely knew by the 20th (and probably knew on the 19th). Read a little more about smoke from the Siberian fires here, here, here, and here.

I took a few more pictures on the morning and afternoon of the 20th, then settled into a few more days of working inside, with the smoke staying about the same as you can see in my photos below. The first shot is a crudely stitched-together photo I took from Location 3, which shows the Osgood Mountains on the left (northwest) and the plateaus and cliffs north of the Midas Trough way to the right (northeast).

Photo taken 20Apr15 from Location 3, looking to the NNE. The bright light in the center is most likely a vehicle coming back from one of several (4-5) mines. It's that time of the morning!

And to get that photo stitched I had to finally figure out how to get Photostitch (Canon's program) downloaded onto this 8.1 computer. In the mean time, I had tried several free downloads and online programs, and Microsoft ICE, and none of them could do a thing with my poorly shot photos. (Surprisingly enough, I still don't own a copy of Photoshop, even though I had an early Mac version several years back, when it was a very simple and straightforward program.)

Here's another shot of the Midas Trough from that same old standby location, Location 2. This is one of the best places to stop to take photos along S.R. 789 and the Getchell Highway as far as getting out of road traffic is concerned, but there is a lot of roadside junk to shoot around, and there are always the pervasive power lines.

Photo taken 20Apr15 from Location 2. The bright light to the left is a vehicle on the Midas road, probably coming back from the mines.

On this morning, my sunrise photo shows a lot of the reddish orange glow reported in the northwest and elsewhere in the western U.S., although my photos are nowhere near as spectacular as those shown here at the Siberian Times. In fact, it seemed that the density of the smoke was wiping out the sunrise I was seeing, but maybe I was too early that day, and I didn't have time to wait for the sun to peak through.

Later on the 20th, I took this picture of Jake Creek Mountain through very dense smoke from about 14.5 miles away.

Photo take 20Apr15 from Location 4.

Below, I've stopped at my favored Location 2, at the junction of the Midas and Getchell roads, and taken one more shot looking off toward the Midas Trough. This very hazy photo was taken with the same focal length as my second photo, and not only can you just barely see the cliffs and lowlands, you can barely see the power line wire in the foreground!

Photo taken 20Apr15 from Location 2.

Off in the distance to the southeast (next photo, below), I could barely see the outlines of the Valmy Power Plant (North Valmy Generating Station), couldn't see the Shoshone Range beyond Battle Mountain some 60 miles distant, and could barely see the outline of Buffalo Mountain, which is a kind of northern splinter of the Tobin Range beyond the low eastern hills of the Edna Mountains (far right) and beyond the long flat of Pumpernickel Valley (hidden from view). In the original, pre-stitched photos, the vague outline of the Valmy power plant is clearer, and a ghostly mountain beyond the horizon down that long dirt road can be seen: Battle Mountain. Note: Wikipedia shows this mountain as the Battle Mountains or Battle Mountain Range, but the semi-circular mountain is officially known as "Battle Mountain" — see the USGS TNM 2.0 map here — and everybody in Nevada, at least those north of Tonopah, knows this. Also note, if you click through to view the topo map of Battle Mountain the mountain, you'll notice the central, highest peak, Antler Peak. Antler Peak gave name to the Nevada-famous, late Devonian to Pennsylvanian(?) Antler orogeny.

Photo taken 20Apr15 from Location 5.

Just a few miles down the road, I was impressed enough to take one more picture, this time of the Sonoma Range and Sonoma Peak from a pullout overlooking the Humboldt River near Preble. In this shot, Sonoma Peak is about 13.5 miles distant. The snow fields surrounding Sonoma Peak are harder to see in the closer shot than they were in Photo #4 from 3 miles farther away!

Photo taken 20Apr15 from Location 6.

When I left the area on the 23rd, the hazy smokiness was still in full swing, and I was getting quite tired of it. During this time, the haze was fairly dense, but a strong smoke smell was generally absent. One or two days I wondered if my eyes burned just a little, but it wasn't like last summer during the densest smoke, when it was hard to work outdoors, or even indoors without A/C. I figured that this time, because the smoke (or most of it) was coming from so far away, we were getting mostly the extreme fines, not any of the larger particles that cause breathing and eye problems (at least in me, IANAD).

When I came back less than a week later, I was welcomed by a great clearness, one that isn't seen in the northern Nevada desert that often these days, what with more wind than I'm used to anywhere but in the Mojave of southern CA. A large T-storm or Pacific front came through, and the air was fresh and clear. I drove to work, sans camera unfortunately, and thought I'd take some pictures the next day from the same spots, to show how these shots would look on a day rivaling the clearness of the 70s or 80s — but on the next day, the 30th, haze began to move back in, and I once again wondered whether it was all from the northwest (reported Oregon fires), or if it was partly or entirely from Siberia. Were the fires over there still going?

It turns out that they were, so the haze that persisted into the next week and a half, until at least May 5th or so, was at least partly from continued field burning in Siberia, China, and Korea, as noted here, here, and here. NOAA first reported — on their HMS Fire and Smoke page — about this second band of incoming smoke on April 29th, and continued reporting it through at least May 7th.

And so it goes...

View Midas Trough and Siberian Haze in a larger map.