The northern section of Highway 8A

Signs at the turn-off from westbound 140 to SRs 8A and 34A

Well, I finally did it! I traveled the northern section of Nevada S.R. 8A, which runs from the NV-CA stateline east of Cedarville, CA, to Nevada S.R. 140, the Winnemucca-to-the-Sea Highway. I posted earlier about the west end of northern 8A here, here, and here. The northeast end of northern 8A was covered briefly in this post, which is part of a series about Highway 140. The traverse described in this post was part of a larger loop trip from northern Nevada to northern California, the westbound portion of which is shown in this map (also embedded at the bottom).

Take the left fork to stay on 8A, or the right fork for 34A.

Looking southeast across Echo Creek at Gooch Table.

Volcanic tableland in the foreground. The Pine Forest Range is on the right; the Pueblo Mountains near Denio are on the left.

The sky was overcast for much of the trip, so the photos I got were not as good as they might have been on a bright summer day. Wildflowers were out—not a superbloom but quite persistent and with numerous species—and I saw three pronghorn in the west-central part of the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge.

One pronghorn barely visible. The south end of Gooch Table is to the left; the hills beyond the pronghorn are northern slopes off Fish Creek Mountain.

As the northern slopes of Fish Creek Mountain came into view, the area started looking familiar, and I wondered if I'd bushwhacked through the mountain mahogany on Fish Creek Mountain during a long-ago deer-hunting adventure. Also, I was now coming into the area where the Stolpas got in trouble in the winter of  '92-93. Beyond the pronghorn in the photo above, more or less just beyond the area between that dark volcanic flow and the mountain-mahogany-covered hills, the land slopes east into the upper drainage of Hell Creek, where Jim and Jennifer took refuge in a small cave approximately two miles east of Blowout Mountain. Hell Creek drains into Virgin Creek, eventually into the area of the Virgin Valley opal mines, where they might have found people, had they been able to continue their long trek through the snow. Instead, Jim walked 40 miles or so to Vya, where he luckily found someone at or near the road maintenance station.

Two pronghorn.

The road, 8A, is wide and graveled, quite smooth over most of its length, though it was decidedly dusty. At the north end, the gravel included oversize rocks that make for a rough ride in places. I had the AC on high and recirculate throughout the dirt portion of my trip (from NV 140  to CA 299) to keep the cabin pressurized; otherwise I was breathing in a lot of dust. Every time I'd stop, the dust would move over me from the rear, and I'd have to wait to take photos. The dust, in the mostly still air, was drafting along with the Jeep in lieu of any wind blowing it to one side or the other. By the way, it's always good to check your air filter after a trip through such volumes of dust, or even during if the silt is particularly nasty.

Mesa at the south end of Fish Creek Table.

And then, having passed from northwestern Humboldt County to northern Washoe County, and having also passed out of the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, I finally turned onto a side road for lunch. Lunch was accompanied by a short wildflower walkabout.

Moving on from lunch, I came to the fast, western section of road approaching Vya. Finally, the sun came out.

Looking west toward Vya: The playas of Middle & West Lakes are in the center, with Massacre Lake behind the hill on the right. The dark knob on the left is Painted Point.

The 8A portion of the larger trip, from its junction at the north end with Nevada S.R. 140 to the NV-CA stateline where the road becomes CA 299, took about two and a half hours, including several brief photo stops and a 20-minute lunch stop. Google has one traveling that route (63 miles) at an average speed of 18 mph, whereas my average speed including more than 20 minutes of down time, was 25 mph. Before leaving, I had calculated that Google was giving me a rate of 17 mph just for the 140 to Vya section, but apparently they think the entire 8A section is a drag. In winter, of course, one might not be able to traverse the road at all, what with all that volcanic-derived silt turning to sticky, slippery mud, or the plateau country becoming buried or drifted during any serious snowstorm.

Wildflowers near the junction of 8A and 34 south of Vya.

As mentioned earlier, I've been up in the Sheldon country before, most notably many years ago for black powder deer hunting. We were probably somewhere over in the Fish Creek Mountain – Blowout Mountain area, or perhaps a bit to the south down near Mahogany Mountain.

More about 8A at LFD:

Highway 8A

Highways 8, 8A, and 8B

all posts tagged 8A

Note: a few photos shown on the map didn't make it to this post.

Future Stories from the Palmetto Moutains

It's 58 miles to the next gas station at Lida Junction on S.R. 266, looking west.

In later years—in the future of the 1976 "present" of these ongoing thesis-hunt stories—I made my way back into the Palmetto-Magruder area barely a handful of times. Once, while taking a back way into Death Valley in the fall of 1986, we made some stops between Lida Junction and Lida to find some blackbrush. This notably unsuccessful endeavor was instigated by a palynologist—he preferred the pronunciation "pollenologist"—who swore he would surely be able to show us some fine examples of the cryptic bush (cryptic to us). At the time, however, most of the bushes lacked leaves (it was fall, or extra dry, or both), and while many had the dark grayish woody stems and trunks reportedly diagnostic of blackbrush, it was nigh impossible to tell one bush from another. Our palynologist couldn't positively identify a single bush! I’ve consequently never been able to ID the plant.

Corral near the junction of SRs 266 and 174, the road to Gold Point. Halogetin in the foreground, unidentified scrub beyond the fences. 

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And now I'm going to deviate from my usual format to tell a story that may or may not have occurred in the Palmetto Mountains, one which I am assured by a certain geo-type, who may or may not have been present, not only did not occur, but could not possibly have occurred. Some details may or may not have been changed in this retelling. Any similarities to certain Former Mining Company trips made in the area during the mid- to late 1980s are unquestionably coincidental.

There were four of us geo-types, four geos on a 2-truck expedition into an area of old mining prospects on the south side of an east-west-trending mountain range in a relatively arid area. The sun was high in the sky, as it often is at about midday. The white Chevy pickup (this part is clear in my mind) was ahead of me, going more slowly than would have been comfortable in my company truck, which was a half-ton, 4WD Ford pickup, probably an '85. The Ford could take the deep washboard that was pervasively present through the area at higher speeds than the Chevy because of its better sway bars and other off-road accoutrements. (I know, I know; this sounds like a trite Chevy-Ford rivalry.) Consequently, I was staying a ways back, letting "the guys" go ahead. (In my truck, we were two youngish women, both geologists.)

And now we come to the controversial part of this possibly apocryphal story.

The two ahead of us—those two in that white Chevy pickup, the truck that also lacked enough gumption to go up hills in anything higher than middle gear (I won't mention here its barely SFW nickname)—took off on a hummocky-looking, powdery-textured two-track that was running straight up a steep hill. I won’t exaggerate and say this was the steepest dirt road I’d ever seen (or driven on), but something about it, besides my aversion to being right behind someone on a dirt road—ugh, the dust!—made me stay at the bottom of the hill while I watched them ascend steeply and make a sharp, overly banked turn to the right.

Up ahead in the distance, they stopped. By now we could either barely see them, or they were beyond our sight. We, who had stayed below, walked on up: it wouldn't be that far to the next prospect, and we wanted to check out the road. Oh, look! Beyond the curve the road cuts straight across the hill at a complete sidehill! Any forward or backward movement and the rear end will slide out! (The rear end is usually the part to go first; a complete roll down the side of the mountain is less common).

Disclaimer: The driver of the white truck maintains that there was no sidehill too steep for the truck at this particular locale (which I remember as being in the Palmetto Mountains), and that there was no winching uphill to a Joshua tree in progress when I showed up on foot (and no winching to any Joshua tree ever, anywhere). And the usual statement—pictures, or it didn't happen—could apply. There definitely were no pictures.

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I’ll stop for now, not to leave anyone hanging or anything, and will come back to the Palmettos once more, with some roadside geology.

Related Posts:
Thesis: Finding an Area
Finding a Thesis: Battle Mountain to Austin to Gabbs
Finding a Thesis: Pole Line Road
Finding a Thesis: Pole Line to Belmont
Finding a Thesis: Klondyke District
Finding a Thesis: A Joshua Tree Aside
Finding a Thesis: Into the Palmetto Mountains
Finding a Thesis: Farther into the Palmetto Mountains
Finding a Thesis: A Bit O' Geology in the Palmetto Mountains

Things You Find In the Field: World's Worst Road?

A road not taken.
Its beginning located here in Google Maps.

Back in 2009, MOH and I were heading up this road in search of a particular "world's worst road," when it turned out we were on very old access road, which soon petered out into the creosote.

Continuation of the road not taken, with destination canyon off in the distance below the faintly pinkish exposure just right of center.

We were heading up toward a road that went up a long canyon, which began at the top of the alluvial fan in the distance. I wanted to drive the canyon road to remind myself about good roads and bad roads. The canyon road, being entirely passable by almost anyone in a high-clearance 4WD vehicle, was merely tedious and quirky at its entrance into the canyon from the top of the alluvial fan. Giant rocks, embedded in the fan, stuck out here and there, almost always precisely in the wrong place. The rock placement, along with considerable rutting of the road on its downhill side, made severe scraping of differentials and other low-hanging parts and lines moderately likely, even highly possible.

I was first led up the canyon by a prospector/submitter/promoter, who wanted to show me some claims of his (or his company's), which were south up the long canyon road, then west beyond some steep or somewhat precarious switchbacks, and then farther west on the other side of the mountain ridgeline. I don't remember our driving arrangements, but I do know that I always prefer to go into the field in my own vehicle (or a company vehicle if one is available), and that, as far as I can remember, I have never been escorted by prospectors onto their claims without me driving my own truck behind them.

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An Aside: Prospectors—who are not geologists but are people who may make a living or add to their regular living by staking and leasing mining claims to exploration and mining companies, their regular living often being related to ranching, possibly to small market or gas station ownership, perhaps to small or large equipment operation (think cat operator), or perhaps including or primarily being related to retirement income of some sort, and which can be related to any other type of occupation including real estate—are often men, but I have known or met at least two non-geologist prospectors who were women.

I don't, BTW, consider myself a prospector, although my work can require me to conduct prospector-like activities, which, as a professional, I call exploration. The (IMHO) erroneous labeling of trained persons with geology or other related earth science degrees as prospectors, came up on Twitter recently. I reject any assertion that professional explorationists can be called "prospectors"—except as a colloquialism—and reserve the term for that used-to-be large, used-to-be ubiquitious (in Nevada, and perhaps in southern California, although a Mojave or otherwise California version of a true prospector is hard to come by: the Mojave version is, in my experience, more likely to be a scam artist), and used-to-be crucial (to the mining industry) contingent of non–geo-type individuals found out and about throughout the backcountry, banging on rocks or panning for gold, staking and maintaining their claims.

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Back to Roads: There are numerous roads here and there in the west, and especially in the Mojave Desert of southern California, that could perhaps qualify for submission to the world's-worst-road competition. In that competition, I'd consider only roads that are theoretically passable, even if one might have become stuck while driving said road. (Getting stuck can result both from driver error or misjudgment and from nasty or terrible road conditions.) Some roads are impassable (or nearly impassable) for short periods of time—after flash floods or during winter snows or spring melts. These roads could be submitted to the world's-worst-road competition using their condition during their passable (or nearly, but not quite, impassable) periods. For the competition, I might develop different categories of "worst," including (1) steep, hairy overhangs, (2) rocks, possibly in more than one category, (3) mud you can get through, but you wish you had never made the attempt, (4) narrow, unlikely passages, including those through tall, thick, and aggressive brush, overhanging willows, or jutting junipers, (5) other narrow, sometimes harrowing or at least challenging passageways through slot canyons and holes-in-the-wall, and (6) essentially one-way routes through canyons or over mountains that don't allow chances for pulling over or turning around if one happens to meet another vehicle or a suddenly impassable section. Oh, and then there are the endless and endlessly variable wash roads where you have to "drive like a river."

Many roads in the Mojave were, when I drove them with some frequency, long and rocky, and we drove them at breakneck speeds of 5 to 15 miles an hour. Back then, 10 mph equaled Warp 1. It was always considered good to reach and exceed Warp 1; attaining Warp 2 (20 mph) would push a Mojave road into the merely average category instead of keeping it hopelessly and endlessly stuck in the bad. Dodging the often small but always persistent rocks on flat to barely sloped alluvial-fan ground in attempts to get into named and unnamed canyons and, from there, to get farther uphill to prospects or areas of interest was a tedious and frustrating procedure. A two-mile length of rocky alluvial fan road could take 1 to 4 hours of travel time.

In the canyons and up in the mountains of southern California, roads sometimes deteriorated rapidly, with giant rocks jumping out, trying to high center your truck or to sideswipe your doors or side panels. I can, offhand, only think of three roads in Nevada that rivaled the average road in the Mojave for its rocks and high centering capabilities. Both of these Nevada roads were navigable with use of considerable 4WD skill; one road resulted in a truck side dent when driven by someone with less skill than I (or with less concentration devoted to their driving).

Nevertheless, I have been stuck in the Mojave more than once (and in Nevada several times, often because of mud). One time, while working for Former Mining Company, my field assistant and I were up some road in the Turtle Moutains, around some corner that I nearly had to back around when leaving, and we came to a narrow, very rocky juncture where the road was almost eroded by a small side drainage. I tried to go around on the high side, which, on the second, third, or fourth attempt, resulted in a major high centering episode wherein only two wheels remained on the ground. We carefully built a road under one or both of the in-air wheels. (Sometimes it's good to tie your vehicle off to any large rock or tree (ha!) that happens to be available.) Then we backed down to a turnaround point—after walking up to, sampling, and sketch mapping the higher prospects we had been trying to reach. Careful examination of the getting-stuck point convinced me that truly artful four-wheeling would have rendered the rocky point passable, but neither of us wanted to make another attempt.

Various views of the location in question can be seen below.

View Location in the Turtle Mountains in a Larger Map

Air photo view from TNM 2.0 Viewer.

Topographic map vew from TNM 2.0 Viewer.

One Year Ago Today: Almost Stuck!

The day was dark with rain and snow, but we headed out anyway, thinking that we could visit the museum in the small town of Cherry Creek in eastern Nevada. We made our first stop on the side of the road to check out this large antelope herd. Antelope can often be spotted between McGill and old Schellbourne Station.
Cherry Creek, the town, is located on the eastern range front of the Cherry Creek Range, where Cherry Creek, the creek, comes out of a small gap in the mountains. Structurally, Cherry Creek looks like it's situated where the north Egan Range runs into the Cherry Creek Range, but the northern end of the Egan Range as named is located in Egan Canyon, the next gap to the south (MSRMaps location showing the regional Basin and Range structure).

That's State Route 489 (above) cutting across Steptoe Valley toward Cherry Creek. The parallel white lines along the road in the center of the valley are patches of snow; standing water can be seen south of the paved road. This possibly intermittent lake or wetlands has recently appeared to be contiguous with Goshute Lake several miles to the north. (This year's so far extra-dry winter might have changed the extent of the southern wetlands.)
This is most of the small community of Cherry Creek. The museum wasn't open, the light was flat and dark, and we didn't spend much time looking around.
It could be a nice place to live, if you like beautiful scenery, out-of-the-way places, and long drives to market.
We hightailed it back to the center of the valley, where we decided to drive south along the historic Nevada Northern Railway to check out a boxcar or other railroad-related artifact we could see off in the distance. The road was well graveled and dry to begin with; the yellow line in the Google Earth image above shows our traverse from the paved road southward.
We made it about 600 or 700 yards before deciding not to go any farther. At this point, the road was turning into a watery mudhole, with no end in sight. In fact, we'd already driven breathlessly and unwittingly through mud we initially couldn't see the end of, and we had come to this short semi-dry spot. The rail, just off to the left in those prickly bushes, prevented any turnaround options, so I decided to back out.
Backing out meant going through a long stretch I shouldn't have driven through in the first place, but had started into before I could stop, then kept going through while hoping for a break in the mud and a turnaround spot. You can see the closest mud hole easily, a second, even larger hole beyond that, and a hidden muddy spot between the two more obvious holes.
Looking at this after driving backwards through it, makes it look pretty tame, but the truck kept getting pulled sideways into the deeper parts of my own tracks, while I tried to stay to the side on the dryer ground right next to the bushes. Consequently, we experienced a bit of fishtailing, and my dual tracks look like a mess of incompetent driving.
Backing up even farther, the road looked good as we went in, just slightly muddy.

Mud is a deceptive thing to try to drive through. Often, one can see a weakly muddy road ambling off in the distance, and this light mud goes on far enough ahead that one can easily get started into what turns suddenly, or gradually, into heavy-duty, very slippery, or deep mud. Getting out and walking an unfamiliar road is recommended, but one usually only walks so far ahead before deciding that the coast is clear: let's go ahead and drive! Incipient or weak mud might suck you in (so to speak), then suddenly, just around the corner: OMG! You're suddenly stuck if you stop, maybe not stuck if you keep going, or maybe staggeringly stuck far from solid ground if you keep going.

If stuck in winter, waiting until the big freeze early in the morning can be one way of getting out. Sometimes a longer waiting period (say months until spring or summer) is required, along with heavy equipment (a D-8 or D-9 dozer). With all the large bushes along our road, we would have been able to build a road under and behind my truck; this procedure often requires multiple jackings-up of the truck (jacking-ups?).

We weren't far from a routinely traveled road, so if badly stuck we could have walked out (in miserable weather) and hoped that whoever we flagged down could have rustled up a dozer: mechanized extraction is easier, though more costly, than building a road by hand. Overall, my getting stuck preferences include better weather (not too hot, not too cold), and I much prefer to be paid to get stuck and unstuck — rather than to be doing it on my own time — a preference come to by many years of off-roading as part of my job.
After backing through the mud, I finally reached a wide point in the road and turned the truck back to the north. An old pump house from the historic Cherry Creek Station is mostly hidden behind the truck; the remains of the water tower can be seen to the right.
We didn't spend much time looking at the base of the water tower at Cherry Creek Station. Maybe we'll go back someday, preferably when the sun is out!

Highway 8A: The Cutoff from Cedarville to the Winnemucca-to-the-Sea Highway

After traveling past the Deep Creek Falls pullout, past Adel, Oregon, and onward past marshes or reservoirs, past interesting but unknown volcanic geology, and over at least two summits...
...we finally came into Nevada...
...and shortly came to the turnoff that was one of the primary purposes for taking the Winnemucca-to-the-Sea Highway back into Nevada, instead of another, much shorter route. That turnoff is the north end of Highway 8A as it still exists today. Highway Eight A, Yay!
The sign says, "Cedarville: 71 miles." There is pavement in Cedarville, CA, west to the Nevada border, but none beyond that, and none from this turnoff south to the Nevada border.
Will we see a sign proclaiming the road as S.R. 8A? We turned south near this mini-kiosk for the Sheldon Antelope Wildlife Refuge to find out.
Looking to the south, it became apparent that this fine-looking dirt road isn't signed 8A from the north end, though it may still be signed 8A from the southwest end, just east of Cedarville, CA, in Nevada where this portion of old Highway 8A starts. (Where does a road start or end? This one starts in CA, goes northeast to the former continuation of 8A and 8, which are now Highway 140 and Highway 95, not entirely respectively, also part of the Winnemuccca-to-the-Sea Highway.)
Current signs indicate that the road — the entire remaining portion of Highway 8A — is "Not Regularly Maintained" and is "Closed in Winter." I suspect that the road is actually open during the winter (not blocked) but that it isn't plowed, can drift shut or get completely buried during snowstorms, and may turn muddy. I also suspect that the sign is there to indicate that people without backcountry experience or who are unfamiliar with the area are not advised to enter, especially in winter. This signage may have something to do with a winter saga that turned out okay, but looked bleak for a while. The last time this road was marked 8A on Nevada road maps was in 1980-1981.

[Note: if the Stolpa's indeed headed due east from the place they abandonded their truck on Highway 8A some unknown miles east of the non-town of Vya, NV, as reported, they would have eventually hooked up with the north-south portion of Highway 140 where it is part of Highway 95 — after crossing 50 miles of rugged canyon country while going entirely against the grain of canyons and mountains. Possibly they could have veered northward toward Gridley Lake, where there may be some active ranches; had they continued due east, they would have either had to cross the Pine Forest Range or, if veering southward to avoid that range, they would have ended up in the northeast arm of the Black Rock Desert, where there might also be active ranches.]

Sidebar: The Kims

View "Points on 8A" in a Larger Map

Points on 8A (above): Point A, the NV-CA state line; Point B, near Vya, NV; Point C, random location on 8A, possibly a good truck-abandoning location (NOT!); Point D, 8A joins 140. (Update: These points can currently only be seen by clicking through to Google Maps; 24Sept2014)

The earlier sign, before the turnoff, essentially indicates that it's 71 miles southwest from the junction of Highways 140 and 8A to the nearest services in Cedarville, CA, unless, of course, you happen to be going to Gerlach, NV, in which case services are a mite farther south. The longest interval of no services that I've noticed recently says 163 miles, leaving Tonopah to the east on Route 6, going toward Warm Springs and the so-called E.T. Highway.
We turned around, being entirely unprepared to drive so far out of our way and shortly running out of trip time...
...and continued our wayward journey toward Winnemucca on the Winnemucca-to-the-Sea Highway.

To be continued...

Caliente Camp Part 8: Getting Out of Pennsylvania Canyon

While driving through Pennsylvania Canyon last summer, I was keen to find some really good examples of the soft, loose sand we had gotten stuck in 30+ years ago. Well, guess what? The 2005 flooding of the area, along with whatever else had happened to the wash in 30+ years, had firmed up the roadbed. The worst places were loose but not too loose: though the sand pushed me around some, especially in turns, it would have been difficult to get stuck in 2WD, not that I really tried.

The wide, sandy area that snagged our truck in 1978 looked a lot like the picture below, a picture taken more than 1.5 miles downstream from our getting-stuck site. Back then, the central driving area of the wash was all sand, the soft, sandy area was much wider than our truck tracks, and the sand was free of any stabilizing plants. It was the kind of sand that makes walking uphill difficult, and difficulty in walking- whether uphill or down, whether through mud, snow, or sand - is a good sign that one might need 4WD, not that we stopped and checked.

Pennsylvania Canyon still contains considerable sand, but most of it is peripheral to the active channel (AKA main roadbed) and elevated above it - as in this photo where sand piles can be seen on the right, and sand ledges or partially eroded banks can be seen way to the left (click to enlarge). It looks like flash flooding over the years has removed a lot of sand and caused about two to five feet of downcutting.

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What would Pete and I do, now that one of our two trucks was stuck in the sand? Well, first off, notice that I said, "one of two." We were lucky enough to have two trucks, and one wasn't stuck! Whew!

Floyd was still in sampling mode and making his way slowly down the wash, so Pete and I set about seeing if we could figure out how to get the two-wheel drive truck upstream through the sand. Pete had a great idea: we would go to the prospect area we had checked out earlier and see if we could find some rope. For some unknown reason, our trucks were not equipped with gear for getting unstuck. Maybe we could scrounge something.

We drove up the side drainage in our good, 4WD truck. All we found around the old mining camp was the spool of copper wire we had already noted, no rope. We debated the options. I felt uncomfortable taking what surely must be someone’s wire. We were, after all, not in any kind of dire straits: we had one perfectly good truck. We could drive it back to camp, get towing gear, and come back for the truck. But we were a little worried about wasting too much time or getting in trouble for getting stuck. We took the wire to use in lieu of a tow rope.

Our first couple attempts at towing the 2WD truck with the 4WD truck using the thick copper wire were pretty unsuccessful - we made a few feet each time before the wire stretched thin and broke. So we backed the good, 4WD truck down the wash until its back bumper was right against the front bumper of the bad, 2WD truck, then wrapped the copper wire tight around both bumpers, around and around several times. With the wire wrapped this way, it held as we made it slowly through the sand, until we were finally on solid ground. We still didn’t know if the crippled truck would make it up that last hill below the distant saddle, but we would have to give it a shot. With me driving one truck and Pete driving the other - the bad truck in the rear in case we had to ditch it - we continued up the main canyon, keeping our eyes open for the still sampling Floyd.

After meeting up with Floyd and helping him finish the sampling of his part of Pennsylvania Canyon, we drove both trucks up and over the saddle, down into the northern drainage, past Tepee Rocks, through Caliente, and back to camp. Stuart had walked into camp by the time we got there. We now had a truck that would not go into four-wheel drive, and the nearest Ford dealer was in Ely, a good two to three hours away. That truck sat in the Ely shop for several weeks before the right part arrived - they kept getting the wrong part from Salt Lake City. And it turned out that Stuart had not been at fault that one day in Kane Springs Valley - one hub had been put together backward at the factory, so repair was covered by warrantee.

A northerly view from below Ella Mountain Lookout, looking toward the next camp area near the Nevada-Utah border.

Related Posts listed at The Caliente and Caliente Camp Series.

Caliente Camp Part 7: Getting Stuck in Pennsylvania Canyon

Shortly after the first truck misadventure of 1978 - with the helicopter still out of commision - four of us took off in two trucks for a kind of piggyback form of recon. From Caliente, we drove east up Clover Creek, entered Barnes Canyon from the north, drove past Tepee Rocks, then eventually crossed over into the south end of the large Ash Canyon drainage at the place I lost my way while driving through last summer. We finally arrived at a well-remembered saddle, the divide between the north-draining Ash Canyon and the the southwest-draining Pennsylvania Canyon.

From the saddle at the north end of the drainage, we looked down Pennsylvania Canyon toward the Meadow Valley Mountains beyond Elgin. We couldn't really see the day’s work laid out in front of us because a bend in the canyon blocked our view, but we could see a long ways.

We dropped Floyd off at the saddle - he would sample his way down Pennsylvania Canyon on foot, about 4 miles of drainage. We then drove down the steep upper part of the canyon in two trucks, into the main part of the canyon, heading toward a juncture where the remaining three of us would split up. This juncture was the turnoff I looked for but didn't find last summer, the place where the main road leaves the canyon. From there, Stuart and I would walk and sample one drainage each; these were between 2 and 3 miles in length and drained toward toward the main road south of camp. Pete would take one truck toward camp, sampling along the way; he would then pick Stuart and I up later in the day. We would leave the second truck in the main wash of Pennsylvania Canyon close to the point where the three of us split up, and Floyd would pick it up and drive it to camp at the end of his day.

On our way down the canyon, the three of us turned up a side canyon to look at some prospects. We dinked around a couple old mining cabins, inspecting them inside and out, a required exploration pastime. One shack showed signs of fairly recent use, signs that were verified by dates on the most recent newspaper and a wall calendar. We took mental note of all the miscellaneous supplies and gear strewn here and there, and found a large spool of shiny-new, thick copper wire. Then we moved on, making our way to the point where we would part ways.

Is it the hill in the foreground, or the hill going out of the next wash?

We left the truck for Floyd in the main wash, that large sandy area in the foreground of the Google Earth image, and then we drove up the side road in the truck Stuart and I had used the day before. Either right at the turn out of the wash or a short way in, we came to a steep hill that the truck couldn't climb. Our driver, Pete, backed down, Stuart and I got out, and Pete tried running the truck at the hill to get up as much speed as possible. The back tires spun: the truck clearly wasn’t in four-wheel drive, even though the transfer case was in 4H and the hubs had been rotated from free to locked. After several attempts and some miscellaneous head-scratching, we finally determined that the driver’s side hub really wasn’t in the locked position; not only that, we couldn't persuade it to go in, even with the judicious use of a rock hammer or two. The truck didn't have operable 4WD.

After we discussed our options, Stuart eagerly went on ahead to traverse and sample his drainage, starting from the bottom of the hill instead of the more convenient, and half-mile-away, top of the hill. Pete and I were left to deal with two trucks, one that had a useful 4WD option, and one that didn't. We turned the funky truck around and started back up the main road in the wide and sandy Pennsylvania Canyon dry wash. Maybe we could trade trucks and leave Floyd with this one; afterall, he wouldn't need 4WD to get back to our starting point at the saddle.

Uh, no. As soon as we got very far into the sand of the sand wash - soft, roiled sand had constituted the road for the last hundred yards at least - we were stuck. Both trucks had come down through the sand just fine. The damaged truck had come down in two-wheel drive without operable four-wheel drive - it would not make the return journey upstream through the sand.

To be continued...

NOTE: Most names in these stories have been changed, on the advice of dubious council consulted friends and colleagues, to protect the innocent other geologists and related field-demented posers.

Accretionary Wedge #11: Field Camp

This post is a submission to the July Accretionary Wedge, being hosted by Ron Schott at his Geology Home Companion Blog.

Field camp for me was a long time ago and far, far away (well, it was far away at the time, a lot closer now). The year was 1973. I was in a slump due to various personal events, and was taking two quarters off from what was supposed to be my junior year in undergrad school. It being my junior year, I was scheduled to take field camp that summer, somewhere amongst the roadcuts, stream beds, and kudzu of southern Virginia. Having never much liked the east coast (well, sometimes, but I was getting impatient to get back into the west by this late date in my young life), I really wasn't looking forward to the experience.

My dad had a great idea: go to field camp somewhere in the west. So that's what I ended up doing, with field camp becoming my first step to moving back to the west that I loved. He flew out with me, after giving me his Brunton, and we spent a couple days going here and there around Tucson, including the Desert Museum and the Kitt Peak Observatory. We found what to this day remains my favorite Mexican restaurant, La Fuente, although I haven't eaten there now in more than 15 years.

During field camp, we traversed the entire state of Arizona, from the north at Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon, to the east somewhere near Window Rock and possibly Kayenta, to some tiny place in central Arizona somewhere south of Winslow - ah, that was Young, Arizona - with a brief stop at San Manuel or Baghdad, a recoup day in Tucson, then down to southeastern Arizona, where we spent some time around Tombstone and Bisbee, and then spent most of our latter days mapping in the Chiricahua Mountains.

Lots of memories from field camp, but no photos. The first days we spent around the Grand Canyon, including an excruciating hike (for sea-level acclimated people like me) down to the Redwall Limestone - and back up. That was the tough part. Then, we did some stratigraphy and mapping at Wupatki, and a bit of mapping near Sunset Crater, and rode the lift to the top of San Francisco Mountain.

At field camp, I drank more Coors beer than I ever have since, finding out later that it was only favored by people from the east coast who couldn't buy it at the time, and was looked down on by most of the locals; I got stuck in the sand for the first time, and although I wasn't driving the Carryall, it wouldn't have helped at all if I had been; I learned how to pee exceptionally fast so no one would come over a cliff or around an outcrop and see me (we had 40 students, 10 of them women, and 10 professors, although not all the professors were there all at the same time, thankfully); I watched as poor Toya got a name for sitting on a cholla one hot afternoon somewhere in northern Arizona; I saw my first and last cock fight in that tiny place known as Young; and I helped fight a fire on our final mapping project in the Chiricahua Mountains - the cholla burned, but didn't disappear, and many outcrops were red from then on and difficult to distinguish from one another. We got fed by local ranchers that evening, and on the last day of mapping, G. Davis brought in a few cases of beer by helicopter. Later, we had an award night, with most awards being silly to hilarious (including the cholla incident), and all T.A.'s got thrown into the the local pond.

And I learned to sing: the Redwall's connected to the Supai, the Supai's connected to the Hermit, the Hermit's connected to the Coconino, the Coconino's connected to the Toroweap, the Toroweap's connected to the Kaibab, the Kaibab's connected to the Moenkopi, the Moenkopi's connected to the Shinarump, the Shinarump's connected to the Chinle, the Chinle's connected to the Moenave, the Moenave's connected to the Kayenta, the Kayenta's connected to the Navajo... it was at about this juncture that we gave up, having not spent too much time in anything above the Navajo Sandstone.

UPDATE: This Wedge was not published.

A Few Rules of the Desert

I've been meaning to publish this one for awhile, but now's the time - it's summer, people are in the field or will be soon, and Tuff Cookie , MJC Rocks, and Hypocentre have both posted some good lists of things they have learned and things that can go wrong while in the field. Some of the rules below will apply to non-desert-type field areas. Use some judgement.

1) Always walk in the shade if possible, even if that means tracking back and forth a little - and try to have your head in the shade in which you are walking.

2) Likewise, always sit in the shade if possible, even if that means scrunching yourself under a small cliff. Have as much of your body in the shade as possible.

3) You can create shade by placing a shirt over a bush and putting your head underneath the shirt. If you are sitting around waiting for someone to pick you up in the desert (like a helicopter or field partner), that small amount of shade is better than nothing.

4) In a similar vein, always wear a hat, a light-colored one is best. The hat will keep the sun off the top of your head, which will help keep you cool, cooler at least than without a hat. A baseball hat will keep the sun out of your eyes. A hat with a brim all the way around will keep the sun off your neck and ears, helping with possible sunburn problems.

5) Unless you really like a tan and are not very fair skinned, always wear sunscreen. I prefer sunscreen with a SPF of 30 to 50. SPF-15 sunscreen does almost nothing for me if I'm out all day long. (And even if you "like a tan," consider wearing sunscreen, anyway.)

6) When you come to a mine adit (or other dark, cool, or enclosed area), always throw a rock in before getting too close or going in. Rattlesnakes like to hide out and stay cool in mine adits. And, as I've mentioned before, so do other wild animals like mountain lions.

7) Mine adits are great places to find shade. They are usually cooler than the heat of the mid-day desert sun, being at average, year-round ground temperature (that would be warmer than the outside air in the winter).

8) If you go into said mine adits, make sure with a light or the reflected light from your Brunton compass mirror that there aren't any shafts just inside the entrance. A shaft is a hole in the ground, into which you don't want to fall. If you have not had any training in underground workings and aren't with at least one other person (preferably two others), DO NOT GO IN AT ALL. Stay out, stay alive. (Going in old workings and active underground mines has a whole other set of rules - one rule is: two lights per person is minimum, and one light per person had better be a fully charged, REAL mine lamp, not a flashlight.)

9) If you have to walk out (from getting stuck or stranded in the desert), do so at night if at all possible. In fact, only walk out in daytime if you know exactly where you are going, what road or building or spring you are planning to get to, how long it will take to get there, and when you can expect a person to be coming along. Also, consider all of those things if you are walking out at night, while also considering how well and how safely you can traverse the ground in the dark.

10) Because deserts (and other countryside - anywhere) can also be cold, especially at night, and even in high summer - always carry waterproof matches.

11) Always know the countryside. Know where all the springs are, and know which ones have water this year. Know if any dry washes are likely to have water running in them. Know which so-called perennial streams or creeks might actually be dry.

12) In other words, always have a good topographic map with you. A GPS with a good, downloaded map might suffice, but batteries can die, and sometimes the satellites are unreachable (bottoms of some canyons) or their output might for some reason be inaccurate. A folded paper map will never run out of batteries and will never give you the wrong coordinates (unless you read it incorrectly).

13) If you are stuck or stranded and have a vehicle, stay with it. There are only a very few occasions when leaving your vehicle to walk out is a good idea. Of course, you will have to make that decision in the field, hopefully not after you've become muddle-headed from lack of water, from heatstroke or heat exhaustion, or from exposure to the cold.

14) Always have plenty of water. If you have a vehicle, have it loaded with water. Five gallons in a vehicle is an absolute minimum, even when traveling on paved roads. In fact, when on any dirt road, the USFS and BLM generally require you to have one axe, one shovel, and one gallon of water per vehicle. (And they may still be able to draft you for fire fighting, maybe.)

15) If you are out and about in the middle of nowhere (or maybe even somewhere), and you see a water trough or water tank - get in it. A great way to cool off. As mentioned in the comments, it's probably a good idea to check for snakes first, especially in some areas, though I've never seen any in cattle troughs or tanks in the western and southwestern U.S. deserts (also, see note below about other areas).

16) Remember, almost any water (for drinking) will do in a real pinch, although particular water sources are best left for absolute last resorts. Carry some water purification pills (for the water, not you), and have a water purification system in your truck. As Chuck notes below, NEVER drink radiator water that has antifreeze in it, which is most radiator water - that will kill you.

17) Don't ever, ever throw any water away, and use the absolute minimum necessary for things like washing dishes and hands, or brushing teeth. Absolute minimum. Absolute.

18) Don't drink beer while working in the desert (especially a hot desert, especially while camping out with possibly limited resources and a long walk out if your truck goes bad). Beer (etc.) is dehydrating. And don't whine (to me) about this rule. If you break this rule, go back to the rule about carrying lots of water, and triple the amount of water you need to carry in your truck.

19) If you are traveling about off-road in a vehicle, always have two spare tires. Head in as soon as the first one becomes flat. Don't wait for the second one to become flat! Carry some of that awful tire goo. Know how to change a tire, and have everything possible that you might need to use: cheater bar, WD40, handyman jack in case you are in a tight spot (do not use on rental car), and flares or orange triangles in case you are on the side of a major road. Have a tire pump in your truck - one that plugs into your cigarette lighter or attaches to your battery - in case you only have a relatively slow leak and don't want to use the awful tire goo.

20) Have any and all means necessary and possible for getting said vehicle unstuck. Always carry a full roll of duct tape.

21) Have a partner with you if at all possible, or at least be within walking distance of where people are or pass through routinely - routinely being at least 4 times per day. If you know or suspect that people - like ranchers, cowboys, sheepherders, or other geologists - pass through the area less than 4 times per day, then count that as zero people.

22) In other words, know the countryside you are working in and all the conditions.

23) Even before you become stranded, have a plan of what you are going to do, if. Where are you going to go? What will you do when you get there? Will there be someone there, or will someone come by in a vehicle? How long will you wait where you are after the helicopter pilot (or your field partner in a truck) hasn't come to pick you up?

24) If you find yourself walking in circles while mapping, or if you find yourself not being able to decide which way to go next or what to do next - it is time to stop, whatever you are doing. Sit down. Sit down in the shade! Do not sit down on a hot outcrop. Drink some water. If you have an ice chest with cold water from melting ice, put some on a scarf or hat or shirt, and put that on your head to cool yourself off. Maybe you are just walking in circles because it's late in the day and it's time to call it quits. Maybe you are walking in circles because you are in the very early stages of heat stroke or heat exhaustion. If you are young and sure of your condition, consider pouring some of the melted ice water over your head - that is a very fast way to cool off -- Disclaimer: this method may not be recommended by safety personnel because of potential shock or heart considerations.

25) Always carry a first-aid kit, even if only a small one. These days, a cell phone could be helpful, if you are in range. A satellite phone might be even better.

26) Always know the latest rules about what to do in case of a snakebite (the first-aid people change their minds about this one fairly often).

27) More about water - if you stop sweating, drink some water. Drink lots of water. Don't stop drinking water. Go into town and get a motel room with air conditioning. Your body will hardly cool you if the temperature is over 120 degrees F. Get on in to town!

28) Of course, some things might happen that you can't or haven't planned for - you will always have to improvise in those situations. Don't worry, there are a lot of resources out there, and you are a smart and resourceful person. And a little luck never hurts!

NOTE: in any desert (or field area) foreign to you, different rules might apply.

Where in the West: Black Rock Desert

Oh, all right - I won't keep you-all guessing any longer. June's Where in the West (WITW) is the rather large, dry lake bed or playa known as the Black Rock Desert - and, oops, I had my directions a little confused: the main axis of the Black Rock Desert runs southwest to northeast (not east-west as I often envision it when I'm out there without having looked at a map prior to going - not, btw, recommended - going without a map, that is).
Photo two from June 2 was taken near Cholona siding on the Western Pacific Railroad, looking almost due north at Black Rock Point, the formation of rock after which the Black Rock Desert is named.
Photo one from June 2 was taken near Trego Hot Springs looking approximately northwest.
Photo one from June 5 was taken in the "center" of the desert north of Trego Hot Springs, looking northeast.
Photo two from June 5 was taken from the same location, looking approximately north, with the Calico Mountains in the background.

The Black Rock Desert, sometimes fondly called "the Black Rock," - as in, "I'll be up on the Black Rock this weekend," - is located between the two well-known Nevada towns of Gerlach and Winnemucca. Gerlach lies right at what appears to be the southwest edge of the desert - as it's locally called - as in, "Yep, go on and take the desert up to Soldier Meadow." Actually, as you can see the map from MSRMaps, a small portion of the desert continues southwest of Gerlach. That "small portion" is only 12 miles in length, as long as many Basin-and-Range valleys are wide! (Squares on the map are still about 6 miles across.)
Winnemucca lies many miles east of the desert proper. A wide, graveled, often washboardy (and sometimes horrendous) dirt road connects Gerlach and Winnemucca. The road is currently known in it's entirety as the Jungo Road, according to various county road maps available at Nevada DOT, but it's been shown by two route numbers in the past, with the 1941 state road map showing the entire route as S.R. 49, and with the 1976-77 road map showing S.R. 49 going from Highway 95 just north of Winnemucca to Sulphur, and S.R. 48 going from Sulphur to S.R. 34 (now 447) just south of Gerlach. If the desert is okay for travel, take the desert to Trego — Trego siding and Trego Hot Springs are within a mile or two of each other — and then get off the desert and on to the gravel road. It may be possible to drive farther on the desert toward Winnemucca, but don't do it on my account.

If you are out in the "middle" of the desert and head rambunctiously toward Gerlach - and forget to turn right to get on the pavement (which would be S.R. 34 heading north toward, well, nowhere) - you will run into mud. This operation is most often undertaken at night, when heading straight for the lights of Gerlach might seem like the shortest distance between two points. It's not. It takes a long time to get unstuck out there, and your buddies won't know where you are, because they most likely remembered to follow the main tracks.

When I say "middle," I'm really thinking of an area about half way between Black Rock Point and Gerlach, or maybe closer to Gerlach. If you drive too far to the northeast toward the sink of the Quinn River, you are very likely to get stuck, if not also lost. Take it easy out there!

And seriously, when traveling around in any of this country even on the paved S.R. 34 heading north - past the dirt turn-off to Soldier Meadow, past the old Hog Ranch gold mine, and eventually to Vya - be well prepared for either hot or cold weather extremes. The area north of Gerlach and somewhere east of Vya is where the Stolpa's got lost and almost died while crossing through the wrong part of the world to take a short cut. If you are in Gerlach, stop at Bruno's - either the restaurant or the gas station - and get the low-down on whether the desert is okay to drive on, and get some ravioli while you're at it. I don't know who you could check with in Winnemucca.

Trails:

• John C. Fremont and Kit Carson passed through in 1843-1844.
• The Applegate brothers in 1846 and then Peter Lassen in 1848 more-or-less created the Applegate-Lassen Trail - a cutoff from the established Orgeon Trail (not necessarily a better trail).
• The Nobles Cutoff was established in in 1851 by William H. Nobles, that trail being essentially the present back road from Gerlach to Susanville. That is not a road to take during rains or wintertime or without two spare tires. It's a fairly well-traveled route, traveled by Gerlachians and local ranchers, but it can be quite rocky. Extremely.

You, my readers, will have to do the research necessary to find where all these historic routes actually pass through the desert.

The name: It's common knowledge that Black Rock Point, after which the Black Rock Desert is named, is made of black limestone. Maybe I've been there once. Maybe. I couldn't find any "reliable" resources about the limestone; there are, however, several miscellaneous references to this well-known fact. The link above states that the limestone is more than 300 million years old - I have no idea about that.

The desert is huge, it spans least three counties, no mean feat in Nevada, the land of large counties. The Washoe, Churchill, and Pershing county geologic maps and reports (NBMG Bulletin 70, Bulletin 83, and Bulletin 89) can be purchased here; all county maps can be downloaded here (a huge file). It's the Pershing County report that would answer questions about the limestone.

Playas and the desert: Andrew talks about dry lake beds and what you can do with them (on them?).

More history: and more about the Black Rock Desert in general.

Hot springs: Desert Woman on the Road has photos of Black Rock Hot Springs, which is at the western base of Black Rock Point. She also has some photos of other hot springs in the area.

The desert has numerous hot springs around it's edge and within driving distance (well, everything is within driving distance). Many of these springs are extremely hot, and people have been known to die in them. Always check a new spring out carefully, not by jumping in. Always keep your dogs in the truck or on a leash - and don't jump in after them. One woman has died doing that. Really, the dogs aren't worth it. Read these precautions.

Quinn River: not much info is available.

Lake Lahontan: View a very nice map of Pleistocene Lake Lahontan and other Pleistocene lakes in Nevada, by an old friend of mine, Marith Reheis. There are old lakeshores everywhere you look. (I'm presuming that you're on the desert by now!)
Sign near the west end of the dirt road from Gerlach to Winnemucca (the dirt road begins on S.R. 447 between Gerlach and Empire). Look behind the sign - are those old shorelines?