Twelve (or Ten?) Months of LFD (2017)

I'm doing the year-end meme wherein I compile the first sentence of the first post of every month. Meme rules are as follows, as per DrugMonkey (2014):

Post the link and first sentence from the first blog entry for each month of the past year.

I also add the first photo from the same first post. Previous takes on this Twelve Month meme at LFD were posted for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016.

Aaand...here's the year 2017 for LFD:

January:

It's been icy cold in the far northlands, with temperatures hovering not too far above zero for several days.

February:

It was a late fall day, and I stopped along Route 447 to see if I could get close to some of the brilliantly colored trees along the Truckee River a few miles north of Wadsworth.

March:

I planned to have this descriptive section as part of the last post—the one about being packed and ready to leave town—but this "little bit" grew and grew, and eventually it had to find its own home.

April:

I was looking back through some photos and realized I had some of the Roan Cliffs from the spring of 2006.

May:

What is this?!!1?1!?

It all started when I was trying to find out what rock formations and rock types I was seeing while making the long trip to work and back out near Elko.

June:

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.

July:

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.

August: Nothing.

September:

It's been a busy summer, such that I really haven't had time to get much blogging done—and I had so many good posts planned!

October:

This is a classic road song with "road" right there in the title, courtesy once again of MOH.

November: Nada.

December: (this post).

I'm doing the year-end meme wherein I compile the first sentence of the first post of every month.

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!

Road Song: The Highwayman

The Highwaymen: Highwayman (lyrics)
Album: Highwayman, 1985

This song--like this one posted earlier--reminds me of "the road" and of life on the road as an exploration and recon geologist. It also reminds me of my Dad: because one of his favorite artists, Willie Nelson, is one of the singers; because of the dam building and Boulder Dam reference (even though the building of that dam was before his time); and because he'll always be around (at least for me).

Here's a second version (essentially the studio version, although the accompanying video references to "starship" don't match my Star Trek ideas of what starships really are and will be).

Lassen: View of Lakes

Lakes in the far distance, looking southeast.

From just southeast of the summit near Lassen Peak on Highway 89, a great view of two California lakes comes into view. The stitched-together photo is stitched shows an apparently disconnected highway in the foreground; what you are really seeing is a couple of very sharp switchbacks going downhill past the outcrops of volcanic rocks in the closer foreground.

Location of above photo: the hairpin turns SSE of the summit south of Lassen Peak, on Highway 89.  From TNM 2.0 Viewer, courtesy USGS.

The lakes are Mountain Meadows Reservoir AKA Walker Lake (MSRMaps location), near Westwood, CA, and Lake Almanor (MSRMaps location), near Chester, CA.

Two lakes, with Lassen Volcanic National Monument in the upper left. From TNM 2.0 Viewer, courtesy USGS.

Both are part of the electrified chain of lakes and reservoirs along the Feather River and its tributaries, which goes all the way downstream to Lake Oroville and Oroville Dam.

A somewhat enlarged view of the two lakes.

Mountain Meadows Reservoir is in the distance on the left; Lake Almanor, a large lake, fills the slightly closer distance from the middle into the right of the photo. Note the trees on the far right.

Possible fire scars from the Chips fire.

In this last photo, we've gone all the way to the right (west) of Lake Almanor; the trees on the far right in the previous photo are now left of center. Above the patch of trees right of center, a steep hillside and part of a table mesa have brownish slopes that may have been denuded by the Chips fire in the late summer of this year.

Highways 8, 8A, and 8B

While already busy on the Tuscarora Loop series, which I hope won't be posted in too sporadic a fashion, I noticed that I'm practically living on old Highway 8A!! (How did I not notice this before now??)

Nevada state highways 8, 8A, and 8B used to be a semi-contiguous set of routes that ran from Tonopah to Austin (8A, now S.R. 376), Austin to Battle Mountain (8A, now S.R. 305), Winnemucca to McDermitt (8, now U.S. 95), Winnemucca to Paradise in Paradise Valley (8B, now S.R. 290), and all across northwest Nevada: from between Paradise Hill and Orovada to Denio on what is now S.R. 140, part of the Winnemucca-to-the-Sea Highway, and then from Denio or Denio Junction to the California state line near Vya, on what is partly S.R. 140 and mostly an unmarked but possibly still locally signed portion of 8A. This latter portion of 8A, located almost entirely in northern Washoe County, has not been numbered on state roadmaps since 1981.

1929 Nevada Highway Map,
with the first appearance of S.R. 8 and S.R. 8A.
1932 NV Highway Map,
with the first appearance of S.R. 8B.

Highway 8B is shown with varying lengths, sometimes not making it quite to the town of Paradise, sometimes making it to Paradise, and sometimes making it some undefined or variable short distance beyond Paradise.

1939 NV Highway Map,
the last year S.R. 8 was shown for what is now U.S. 95.
1967 NV Highway Map,
the last year S.R. 8A was shown for what is now S.R. 140.
1978-79 NV Highway Map,
showing old and new numbers for 8A, 8B, and 140.
1980-81 NV Highway Map, showing old and new numbers for
8A and 8B, but S.R. 140 is back to it's usual self.
1982 NV Highway Map: all the old numbers of our favorite
roads are gone, replaced by the new ones.
2011-2012 Nevada Highway Map,
the current map.

As far as the maps go, rather than just the highways, a few things are noteworthy: at least one Indian reservation has shrunk over the years, according to these maps, and "DANGER" areas (military bases or withdrawals), which were shown as zero on the 1929 map, have increased over the years, including an increase in the Fallon area on the 2011-2012 map as compared to the the 1982 map.

Oh, and the last time Winnemucca Lake was shown on these highway maps (instead of Winnemucca Dry Lake), was in 1940, though elsewhere it is said to have dried up in the 1930's, more specifically, by 1938. The lake dried up as a result of the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902, specifically the building of Derby Dam in 1905, which diverted water from the Truckee River into the drainage of the Carson (to irrigate Fernley and Fallon). Additionally, at some point after the lake dried up, Mud Lake Slough, the spillover to Winnemucca Lake from Pyramid Lake, was blocked, reportedly by Highway 34, now S.R. 447, an assertion confirmed rather obliquely here in Note 29, giving no timeframe for the action.

Links to all Historical Nevada Highway Maps.

Over the Plateau and Into the Canyon

With this belated post, I'm returning to our last trip north, which was now more than a month ago. At first I thought I'd do this in the spirit of Evelyn Mervine's geology picture a day — but these are not all geology photos, and I'm going to bunch 12 together, hoping that will hold me until I can get around to another continuation, whenever that will be.

Our November trip north began here, with some wintry views and with us leaving the Great Basin for the Snake River drainage, and continued here, as we drove by an intrusive contact and then north into Idaho.

The 3 Creek Road begins in the tiny burb of Rogerson, which sits along Highway 93 between the Nevada-Idaho stateline and Twin Falls, ID. From Rogerson, the road rambles west toward Salmon Falls Dam and points beyond (MSRMaps location). The sign at the beginning of the 3 Creek Road says Salmon Falls Dam 7, Murphy Hot Springs 49, and Jarbidge, Nevada, 64. Possibly you can guess our destination.
Here, not long into our side trip (the side trip being the main point of the entire trip), we are driving over the old, one-lane Salmon Falls Dam.
At this point, the 3 Creek Road still shows signs of the earlier snowstorm: a bit of snow on the sides of the road, and ice in shadowy curves. The Jarbidge Mountains sit in shadow in the not-so-far distance.
The 3 Creek Road crosses miles of plains consisting of fairly flat plateaus and rolling hills, all variably incised by creeks and rivers draining northward to the Snake River.
A snowy but inviting road traversing the hills to the north catches my eye. If driven, would it take us all the way to the Snake River?
This is a typical view of the southern part of the Snake River Plain, looking west from the 3 Creek Road where it is about to descend into one of the intervening valleys.
We finally left the 3 Creek Road, dropped into the gorge of the East Fork of the Jarbidge River, came to The Jarbidge Forks, and drove south into Nevada along the main fork of the Jarbidge River. Hoodoos in the rhyolitic Cougar Point Tuff appear near the Idaho-Nevada state line.
Most of the hoodoos are in Nevada, certainly the best ones are!
A bush or small tree grows atop a double hoodoo.
The snowy road curves ever onward, giving us glimpses of the canyon walls and mountains above Jarbidge.
Sun glows on the hills we hiked in the summer of 2010, on stands of subalpine fir, limber pine, and whitebark pine.
We arrive, get a room in the middle of a locally critical football game, go for a walk through the snow, and end up at the Red Dog Saloon for beers and burgers.

The Road to Jarbidge: Salmon Falls Dam

In continuing to clear out drafts and finish incomplete series or road trips, I'll take a leap back to October, 2009, when I was driving back from the annual GSA meeting in Portland. Last you knew, I was somewhere in northeastern Oregon, a mystery location replete with tipi, yurt, basalt, and larch.

From there, I took I-84 east to Twin Falls, Idaho, then went south on Highway 93 toward Jackpot, Nevada, with the full intention of making it in and out of Jarbidge, Nevada, in one day. With Jarbidge being a long way from everywhere, I didn't make it. Instead, I made it part way in, turned around, stayed in Jackpot (which I don't recommend unless you love stateline casinos, bring your own food, or both), then went in the next day. Both times, I turned off Highway 93 at Rogerson, Idaho, and went west toward the Jarbidge River across the east part of the Owyhee Plateau, south of the west-central Snake River Plain.

On the way in—the first afternoon and then the next morning—I crossed over a narrow dam located here on the 3 Creek or Jarbidge Road. This is what the area looks like, from Rogerson to the drop-off into the East Fork of the Jarbidge River: generally flat with lots of basalt.
After a slight turn in the road (previous photo), I came to the sign for Lud Drexler Park, which appears right before the one-lane passage across Salmon Falls Dam.
This is a view to the south taken from the center of Salmon Falls Dam on Salmon Falls Creek. The dam was built across Salmon Falls Creek in 1908 to 1912 (history), creating Salmon Falls Creek Reservoir. Because of my convoluted way of approaching Jarbidge, I crossed over this dam three times. Had I known conditions in Jarbidge—they have year-round food, lodging, and gas, although calling ahead wouldn't hurt—I could have stayed there the first night.
Looking north from the center of the dam, one sees this canyon wall made of basalt. The basalt is probably Pliocene, has been mapped as part of the Banbury Basalt, a name which is not in use everywhere. Extending units mapped in quads to the north near Twin Falls, we could be looking at either the Pliocene basalt of Hub Butte or the Pliocene basalt of Burger Butte—or some other basalt entirely.
Unfortunately, the one-lane road over the dam is not a good place to stop and look at rocks!
I got a good view of Salmon Falls Creek Reservoir, which can be seen south of the highway, after driving west of the dam.
On the second day, I stopped just beyond the dam, parked, and took a closer look.
This is the one-lane road as seen from the west side—one has to stop when crossing from either direction and carefully look for oncoming traffic.
The entire dam, as seen from the west on the second day.
A close-up shot of water seeping out between basalt layers just below the dam.
The shadows on the dam were great as I drove back towards Rogerson on the first day.

Some References:

Digital Map of Twin Falls County, Idaho (click on Twin Falls): Digital Atlas of Idaho.

Kauffman, J. D, Othberg, K. L., Virginia S. Gillerman, and Garwood, D. L., 2005, Geologic Map of the Twin Falls 30 X 60 Minute Quadrangle, Idaho: Idaho Geological Survey, Map DWM-43, 1:100,000.

Lewis, R.E., and Young, H.W., 1989, The hydrothermal system in central Twin Falls County, Idaho: USGS Water-Resources Investigations Report 88-4152, 44p.

Othberg, K. L., Kauffman, J. D, and Virginia S. Gillerman, 2005, Geologic Map of the Twin Falls Quadrangle, Jerome and Twin Falls Counties, Idaho: Idaho Geological Survey, Map DWM-52, 1:24,000.