Caliente Camp: Some More Exploration

This most recent time that I visited Caliente, I did some more looking around the long-ago campsite from 1978. I wanted to make sure that I'd found the right site, and I wanted to take more pictures.

The mostly paved Meadow Valley Wash road, Highway 317, isn’t in the same location as shown on old topo maps of the area, and Meadow Valley Wash may not be following the same channel it followed in 1978. The original Elgin, NE, Nev., 7.5 minute topo map, which covered our camp area no matter where it was located, was dated 1969; it was "photoinspected" in 1980 with no changes noted even though the road had moved prior to 1978. Consequently, I’m not entirely sure I found the right location, but after checking out two more possibilities, I’m almost sure. (This site has some downloadable zip files of pertinent USGS topo maps if you are interested.)

In order to more fully evaluate the area, I drove the old camp road - which is the only road shown on the old topo map - south of camp to an unnamed drainage. I then walked the area south of that drainage. Later, I drove south on the main road and checked out an area where Meadow Valley Wash may have washed out some land sometime in the last 30 years (or even before then). With all this additional exploration, I still may have missed the area, but I don't think so. Air-photo sets from 1978 or thereabouts would be helpful.
This area, south of the unnamed drainage, has a good, wide ledge above the river, which we could have camped on - but the view seems wrong, the drainage has a road in it - and I don’t remember a side road that close to camp - and the area is overgrown with cottonwood trees, willows, and high brush. I decided against it.
I then went farther south to an area where Google Earth shows three wash channels, including the active one - see the upper center part of the above GE image. The active channel is against the far east wall of the canyon, where there is a raised ledge above the river, and where the main road is shown on the old topo map.
I crossed the creek here, after walking across two sandy, brushy, and tree-infested unused wash channels. I took off my socks, rolled up my pant legs, and walked through the creek (river?) in my field sandals. Later, having not put my socks back on, and having not rolled my pant legs back down, my legs were all scratched up from all the underbrush, and my feet felt a little misused. Boots or tennies would have been a better choice. I should have at least put my socks back on or rolled down the pant legs!
This is what the canyon looks like, looking south from the ledge where the old road used to be, with the train tracks visible on the west side of the canyon. The ledge continues to the south towards the reddish cut behind the large, square boulder on the left. This ledge is not presently accessible by vehicle at all, has been covered by huge boulders that have rolled down from the cliffs above, and is higher above Meadow Valley Wash than our camp was. The cliffs behind the ledge are steeper than any camp cliffs I remember. It's possible, however, that I looked too far to the south and should have walked farther to the north, but I'm not going back anytime soon.
Because of the relative inaccessibility of the east side of the canyon in this area, and because of the dense tree cover along the active channel in general, I saw and heard lots of wildlife, mostly deer and birds.
Walking back to my truck, after crossing Meadow Valley Wash again, I spied this ground squirrel sitting on a boulder of ash-flow tuff.
So, back we go again to what I think is the most likely camp location. I arrived there fairly early in the morning, and this is what our view would have been near the north end of our camp area. Of course the cliffs of poorly to strongly welded ash-flow tuff look familiar - I have now been there twice in the last month!
While the sun rose behind the cliffs, I putzed around here and there, walking back and forth and side to side in the wide area that was our camp, hoping that I might find some historical remains. I found signs of washouts and multiple realignments of the old road. Back in 1978, we had accessed the camp from the south end; the area I’ve homed in on is now accessed from the north end. The southern access route may have been in the location of that unnamed drainage mentioned earlier.
The railroad tracks and railroad bridge are accessible from the north end of camp, so I walked over and took a few pictures.
The view looking north along the tracks toward the reddish hills across the canyon from my first map area seemed vaguely familiar. Possibly I’ve been here before! If not, then I experienced a random feeling of déjà vu, rather than a meaningful one.
Here's the railroad bridge from the north looking south, with our camp area on the left (east) side of the photo.
After spending some time on the tracks, I turned and walked back toward camp...

...to be continued.

Smoke from CA Fires as Seen from the Ella Mountain Lookout

On the second day of my journeys through the Caliente area - despite warning signs like these saying, "Road Damaged Ahead," and a few unscheduled side trips due to faulty navigation - I finally reached the Ella Mountain Lookout, which is on Ella Mountain. The lookout area has great views for miles around. As noted earlier, however, the skies were full of smoke from California fires.
The Ella Mountain Lookout is at the end of a very long, bladed, sometimes washboardy, sometimes rocky dirt road, about 25 miles from Caliente, NV. Across the last three miles, the road is barely scraped into poorly to moderately welded ash-flow tuff, which makes a poor roadbed that is somewhat impervious to blading, creating an effect that resembles set-in stone washboard. When you finally make it to Ella Mountain across this deceptively substandard roadbed, you will find - for your backroad convenience - two porta-potties, one picnic table, and ample parking.
Despite what the sign says, no one was home.

I took some pictures from the Ella Mountain Lookout upper area (I didn't try to enter the lookout itself), and from the lower picnic-parking area. Below are some photo pairs, with the first of each pair having been taken before noon, when the smoke was still thick (about 11:00 am), and the second of each pair having been taken after noon, after some clearing (about 2:00 pm). The later pictures still show some smoke, but viewing distance has increased considerably - from about 20 miles to more than 60 miles.

This first pair looks almost due east from slightly different angles, toward Stoke's Flat. Some jagged rocks in the middle ground, of possible volcanic affinity, are featured.
In the next two photos, we are looking almost due north toward Pioche, NV. The lower mountains in the foreground are part of the Clover Mountains south of Caliente; the mountain in the middle ground is Chief Mountain in the Highland Range north of Caliente; the mountain in the distance is Highland Peak in the Highland Range due east of Pioche.
This next pair looks southwest toward the Delamar Mountains, which can be seen in the center and right of both photos, forming a slightly arching shape behind the canyons and hills in the foreground. The way distant mountain on the left in the second photo is Hayford Peak in the Sheep Range; the low area in front of that is Kane Springs Wash heading toward Coyote Spring Valley at the base of the Sheep Range. The Meadow Valley Mountains are on the far left of both photos, dipping towards the left. The canyon in the foreground is a side drainage of Pennsylvania Canyon.
The next two photos look almost due south, with a second tower near Ella Mountain behind some rocks on the right. Pennsylvania Canyon - the site of some past escapades - is behind the foreground hill, toward the left. Low hills in the background of both photos, at the end of the V of Pennsylvania Canyon, are part of the Meadow Valley Mountains across Meadow Valley Wash north of Kyle and south of Elgin. The far distant mountains, plainly visible in the second photo, are the Mormon Mountains just south of Carp.
In the last two photos, we are looking slightly south of east toward Stokes Flat and Sheep Flat, with other flats such as Fife Flat and Rocky Canyon possibly visible. The hills and mountains are all part of the Clover Mountains. Utah may or may not be visible in the far distance. The road dropping down from the saddle in the foreground is the road into Pennsylvania Canyon.
I'll write more about Pennsylvania Canyon in a later post.

For more about fire lookout towers, read this excellent post at the BLDG BLOG.

International Vulture Awareness Day, 2009

Today is International Vulture Awareness Day. Turkey Vultures, Cathartes aura, are not endangered or threatened - in fact they are listed here as common - and so it's fairly easy in desert areas of the intermountain west to become aware of them. One often sees one to several vultures soaring overhead or hanging around roads nibbling at their latest meal. They haven't always been one of my favorite birds, maybe because they are so common, but they are rather magnificent, with a full wingspan wider than I am tall, and a striking black-and-white underwing pattern. They also feature in many western novels and movies.

My most recent encounter with a Turkey Vulture is described below:

As I was driving along a particularly wet and marshy part of Clover Creek a little east of Caliente, NV, the other day, I was keeping my eyes open for a Great Blue Heron that I had seen early the previous morning. Much to my surprise, a huge bird lifted off from the bushes to my right, and flew right in front of my truck. I assumed it was the heron, and tried almost in vain to get a picture of it. My sole non-fail attempt is shown above.
A minute later this large Turkey Vulture was soaring overhead, and a review of my photos showed that the first bird was the same vulture, and not a heron.

More on Turkey Vultures here at JournOwl.
Blog for Vultures at IAVD09.

Caliente Smoke Update

As reported in my last post, the Caliente area was covered by a thick blanket of smoke most of the time I was there, especially on August 30th through September 1st (and possibly after that, but I wasn't there to observe). Local speculation was that the smoke was most likely from fires in nearby Utah, such as the large Mill Flat Fire.

Satellite images I've seen since leaving Caliente show that most or all of the smoke in the Caliente area was from fires in California. This post at the CIMSS Satellite Blog, especially, shows the plume from the Station Fire in southern CA going across the Caliente area on August 30th, then clearing somewhat during part of August 31st. Smoke returned to the area on September 1st. The related high-altitude carbon monoxide mass or plume is shown here by JPL.

The above view is from the road to the Ella Mountain Lookout, looking to the east.

From the Field: Caliente, Nevada

I just got back from a short trip to Caliente, Nevada. The weather was looking good when I headed down there, with temperatures predicted to be slightly lower than average, especially if clouds like these stayed around. This photo is from the early evening of the day I arrived.
Caliente is a railroad town. Its mission-style railroad station is now being used for city offices, library, and other civic-type functions. This photo looks south down the railroad tracks, and shows the Boxcar Museum, painted bright red-orange, beyond the railroad depot. Supposedly "officials at the depot frown at people crossing the tracks" to get to the station, but I was assured by someone at the Shady Motel that it was okay, although I didn't see anyone else doing it.
Nevada Historical Marker 249 is on the north side of the railroad depot. Although the sign is stamped 248, apparently two were marked 248, and this one is called 249 on the official list. Text is here.
By the morning of the first field day, thick smoke had moved into the area, supposedly from big fires in Utah. Colors were consequently a little yellowish to reddish, and a bit dulled. You can see an anemometer and some other equipment behind the lampost and to the right of the tree, on the northwest corner of the walkway surrounding the railroad depot.
The anemometer is part of the Caliente Community Environmental Monitoring Program (CEMP) weather station. The only place I could find readouts for this CEMP station was at the Weather Underground. All other online weather reports for Caliente appear to be extrapolations from the usually hotter cities of St. George and Las Vegas.
The main readout panel shows a typical early morning temperature of 58° F (about 14° C).
Temperatures after daily field excursions were usually in the 93° to 95° F range (about 34° to 35° C). That was hot enough for me!
This is a sunset photo, taken in the evening after the first field day, with most of the old main part of town in the lower right. Smoke was thick through the first field day and through the afternoon of the second field day, when the skies cleared and views improved.
On the evening after my second day in the field, smoke moved in again, apparently from the east.
The sun looked like this in the early morning on the day I left, red from the smoke.

Related Posts:
Map Area in Meadow Valley Wash
Our Camp in Meadow Valley Wash

Note: As pointed out by @FlorianBoyd, the Kelso Train Station is similar to the Caliente Depot, and is also on the same Union Pacific rail line.

Update: DRI has a map of all their CEMP weather stations here, as pointed out by ChrisM in the comments.