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.

Update from the Lake: It's Been a Green Spring

It all started with the squirrel, who was out in the side yard chomping on some seed we'd thrown out, or maybe it was a peanut. Somehow it inspired me to grab my camera and wander through the yard.

I walked around toward the front, and grabbed this shot of our wild patch of clover, growing along the fence protecting the Carolina allspice.

The clover isn't anything we actually planted, but it's kind of pretty.

An iris.

When I got around to the backyard, I made sure to get a photo of the ripest lemon on our small, two-year-old (to us) lemon tree. The tree arrived with green lemons, and it's only this year that it's really started growing.

Iris budding out near "the island."

I'm not really sure which of our fruit trees this is, but I'm thinking it's the plum. If not, it's the cherry, the peach, the almond, or the apple.

We planted peas randomly throughout last year's garden area, mostly to fix some nitrogen, but we'll also harvest seeds for eating and reseeding.

Last but not least, the raspberries were starting to go to town.

All pictures were taken in early June.

Death Valley Trip, Getting There: A Hike to Pleistocene Shorelines

On the second day of our road trip (which began here), we left Yerington at a reasonable though not early hour, knowing full well we'd make Beatty by dinner time.

About an hour later, after reaching the Alt-95–95 junction near Schurz and while still approaching Walker Lake, we found an opportunity to stretch our legs and see some geology in the process. We pulled into a side road leading to a gravel pit...and noticed a dirt road heading straight for some terraces, which I think are either tufa-cemented Lake Lahontan shorelines or a fault scarp.

These are some relatively low hills along the range front in the northern Wassuk Range.

But then we found the old highway, which was built above a historic highstand of Walker Lake—one that must have been at about 4060 feet, below Walker Lake's historic highstand that occurred in 1868 and was between 4089 and 4108 feet—and we left the gravel pit, driving north and looking for a dirt road to take us to the range front.

Here we're looking NNE along the old highway, toward some brightly colored, possibly hydrothermally altered rocks in the northern Wassuk Range.

Oh yeah, I'm a sucker for old roads!

We found a dirt road, one heading toward the canyon way to the left (below). Our goal? The Lake Lahontan shorelines and apparent Lake Lahontan high strandline on the rounded hill near the left.

We're looking southwesterly toward the range front.

A zoomed view of what look like shorelines. One range-front fault may be at the base of the slopes at the bottom of the photo. It's unclear to me from Google Earth how faults and shorelines are interacting.

The same range front and shorelines, looking more to the northwest.

Hike, hike, hike...hike, hike, hike. After about 15 minutes, I arrived at a boulder-strewn shoulder just below what I think is the highest Pleistocene shoreline.

We're looking west toward Reese River Canyon (not the same Reese River as in central Nevada). The canyon looks worthy of future explorations.

Now I'm standing on, as near as I can tell, the highest Lake Lahontan shoreline, looking to the south.

What's that across the dry wash?

Zoomed in, we can see a contact: poorly sorted Quaternary deposits above orange-brown hydrothermally altered rocks.

Is that a fault? Is it a sedimentary contact, either related to fan material being deposited along the range front or a wave-planed shore? I can't answer that question without going back to investigate.

MOH went on ahead to the top of the hill.

The highest ancient shoreline (Sehoo age) looked to me to be at the flat area I was standing on, just about at the often reported elevation of 1332 m (4370 feet), although the next slight break in slope—the change in color just below MOH—coincides with a strandline reported elsewhere of 1338-39 m (about 4390-4393 feet).

Looking to the north, we can see this same break in slope (the one I was standing on), with some ancient shorelines below it (especially to the far right). Note the change in color—green above to yellow below.

The yellowish or straw-colored areas along the break in slope are from a closely spaced, dried-out plant, probably Halogeton.

Done with my brief shoreline study, I walk back down to the bouldery shoulder, thinking that I'll eventually examine the intriguing contact across the wash.

First, I'm distracted by the granitic boulders. This one has a nice pegmatite dike cutting across, weathering out in relief.

Then I'm distracted by these little wildflowers growing on, near, and all around the granite boulders.

This is some kind of filaree or storksbill, probably Erodium cicutarium.

A lizard!

A bee!

Perhaps I got carried away (and didn't get to the contact across the wash) because this was the first wildflower spot of the trip.

The bouldery slope seen from below.

I turned my sights to the east, to the western range front of the Gillis Range, where I could see more ancient Lahontan shorelines.

This part of the Gillis Range is called the Agai Pah Hills.

Back at the Jeep, I looked off to the northeast, to a broad, flat area really out in the middle of nowhere.

I decided to test out my 300mm zoom (450mm in 35mm equivalent). The closer, rocky hills don't have a place name on USGS maps. Red Ridge is the name of the lower hills beyond that; the mountains beyond are the Sand Springs Range, south of Fairview Peak.

We continued on our way, southward toward Hawthorne, Mina, Coaldale, Tonopah, and Beatty.

Location map

Related Posts (in order of posting):
Death Valley, "Super" Blooms, Turtlebacks, and Detachments
Death Valley Trip, Part 2: More of the Badwater Turtleback Fault
Death Valley Trip, Part 3: Northward, and over Daylight Pass
Death Valley Trip, Getting There: Wave Clouds beyond the Sierra

Finding a Thesis: A Joshua Tree Aside

South of the Klondyke district (our previous stop on this journey) and just north of Goldfield, one reaches one of the northernmost populations of Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) — or the northernmost population, depending on what range map you use. These unusual plants continue southward past Goldfield toward and beyond Beatty. They occur in dense stands or forests in several places, notably along Highway 93 approaching Caliente, Nevada, and in a few places in the Mojave Desert of California.

To take the pictures I've included here, I drove off Highway 95 onto the Silver Peak Road about three to four miles north of Goldfield. Joshua trees are scattered all along the five to six miles between 95 and Alkali, Nevada.

Looking NNE toward Tonopah and the Klondyke Hills.

Joshua tree with Hasbrouk Peak to the left (reddish hill underlain by Tertiary volcanic rocks) and the Klondyke Hills to the right (brownish hills in front of the volcanic rocks of the southern San Antonio Range).

Joshua trees, especially those near Goldfield, make me think of my Former Mining Company days and Roquemore, who was the head of the Nevada District. (We were divided into four districts for exploration and management purposes, with Nevada being covered by one district’s worth of geologists. Our district, the Western District, covered all Pacific states up and down the coast from SoCal to Alaska, and we claimed Hawaii, though we were never lucky enough to be stationed there). Roquemore told me — years after my thesis-hunting pass through the Goldfield area when we were exploring Mineral Ridge near Silver Peak as part of a Nevada-Western joint venture — that Dusty, a dark-haired young woman working in the Nevada District, always waved at Joshua trees every time she saw one; she would wave while saying, “Hi.” Dusty had claimed that Native American tribes, or a particular tribe, believed the Joshua trees held or were the manifestations of the spirits of their ancestors, an assertion that I haven’t been able to verify by Googling.

While listening to this story on that day gone by, we drove past another two dozen Joshua trees, and Rock waved out the window, saying, “Hi,” in a immitation high-pitched voice.

Wild horses amongst the Joshua trees.

I'm not sure what the Nevada District geo-types were doing in Joshua tree country. We of the Western District would later claim as ours all areas where chollas could be found, and gave this new territory, which went as far north as the Gilbert mining district in the Monte Cristo Range west of Tonopah, the name “Cholla District.” Possibly the Nevada geos were out looking at something down near Caliente; possibly they had ventured into Goldfield, Silver Peak, or even as far south as Beatty. Nevertheless, every time I see a Joshua tree, I think of Rock saying hi in that high voice, I think of Dusty’s story about the spirits of ancestors in Joshua trees, and I find myself, on occasion, waving.

The Finding A Thesis series will continue onward, past Goldfield and into the Palmetto Mountains.

Read more about Joshua trees at DesertUSA.

Previous Posts in this Series:
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

Update from the Lake: Tracks and Things...

...on the beach at Butt Valley Reservoir, also seen here and here.

Probably dog.

Deer?

Sasquatch — I mean, human.

Crawdad.

Small crawdad pinchers. Finger is red from blackberries.

Corbicula fluminea or Asian clam, not zebra mussel.

Jelly blob, probably Pectinatella magnifica, a type of freshwater bryozoan.

Enlargement of the same photo. This is a colony, and each of the circular to star-shaped indentations or rosettes supposedly consist of several individual organisms.

Shaly beach sand. Hopefully we'll see the reason for the odd shape of this sand in a few days!