This was really Nick's stop on the trip, but since it wasn't far out of the way, I decided to give it a look, as I also have an interest in ancient petroglyphs. The road is somewhat difficult to find. It is almost exactly two miles north of the junction of Nevada highways 375 and 318, and blocked of by a movable barbed-wire gate. Passing through the gate, I drive approximately ten miles through the open desert until I reach a sign marking the area.
Driving past this initial sign, I find the first of three highly decorated stone islands and begin exploring. The petroglyphs here are fascinating and somewhat unique relative to others I have viewed. Circling around the first area and returning to the jeep, I start driving toward the second area. The map I have though is far from scale and I pass the turn I actually needed to take. Continuing on for a mile or so, I end up at some abandoned shacks at the bottom of a gully. I have no idea who would have lived here or how long they have been deserted, but I'm fairly confident at this point that I should have taken the other road.
I head back and find my way to the second and third islands, known as Shaman Knob and shaman Hill respectively. I explore the Hill first and find some somewhat bizarre glyphs as I make way around the site. Entering a small closet sized area marked as containing a glyph of interest, I am greeted by the unmistakable sound of a rattlesnake echoing off of the stone walls. I immediately halt my progress and begin looking for the source of the warning. There, under the shade of a small juniper tree, sits my friend somewhat coiled and with his rattle sticking straight up in the air. I must say that even while I remain very conscious of avoidance techniques in the desert, nothing quite gets your attention like the sound of a rattlesnake doing his thing. I decide to dismiss the glyph he guards as less important and back out of the area, leaving him to his domain.
I head back over to Shaman Knob and find more interesting glyphs, including one of a humanoid figure standing next to some sort of saucer. These ambiguous pictures from the past always open my mind to speculation about ancient alien visits. However, as those that left the glyphs have been deceased for centuries or even millennia, I will be left to wonder.
Of all of the petroglyph sites I have visited, I have to rank Mount Irish among the best and I even had a little rattlesnake adventure acting as a cherry on the sundae. Time for the long drive home.
Arriving at this park on the far eastern fringe of the state, makes me wonder why I haven't come here before. The site is quite breathtaking. After the initial entry into the park, you enter a long gorge running north to south, and contained by the feature that gives the park its name on either side. Much like the Sump, this area was once a lake bed. Once dried, the muddy bottom began to dry into an almost stone like substance, and later erode into what I will describe as the cathedral's pipe organs. Many thousands of this formations form either side of the gorge as it narrows to a shallow canyon as one approaches the northern end.
As I intend to camp here tonight, I pay the fees and begin setting up my tent. Of all the campgrounds I have ever stayed, this one ranks among the nicest. With a couple hours of sunlight left, I decide to hold off on cooking dinner in lieu of exploring a bit. I walk the short distance to the eastern side of the gorge to begin taking in the pipe organs. The scale and quantity are breathtaking and truly beautiful. I'm compelled to take a huge number of pictures in a futile attempt to convey this places majesty to my friends.
Exploring still further on, I discover the "caves", which a ranger had mentioned to me upon my entry into the park. While not true caves, they are in fact eroded paths through the 'pipes' that remain in shadow most of the day and therefore noticeably cooler than the outside air. Some of them travel a few dozen yards into the cliff wall. Rather exciting to explore into these.
Finding may way back out to the gorge, I hike into the more narrow section at the northern end. From a distance, I can see stairs leading up to the precipice and what appears to be an observation deck overlooking the whole of the park. I make my way there for the view, and then fairly exhausted return to camp to cook some dinner.
My evening ends looking over a beautiful campfire, while attempting to keep warm in the plummeting evening temperatures. Crawling into my sleeping bag, I drift off to a restful peace and wake shortly after dawn. It's pretty cold though and so, I resist getting out from under the covers and out of the tent, though eventually I manage to do so. Watching the sun come up over the eastern pipe organs was awe-inspiring as I sip on my morning tea and look forward to my next stop. Cathedral Gorge did not disappoint. I hope to return here someday.
The next stop on my trip sits about 70 miles east of Tonopah. Lunar Crater is a National Natural Landmark and upon arriving at its crest, one can easily see why. This 430-foot deep volcanic craters is quite a sight to behold. I take a few pictures and then drive back the way I came, stopping at the nearby Easy Chair Crater on my way out.
This second crater is a collapsed cinder cone volcano, and collapsed in such a way as to resemble a very comfortable chair, though of magnificent proportions. A couple more shots and I head on toward my next stop.
For a couple of months, my friends, Nick and Brent, and I have been planning a road and camping trip to see some of Nevada's lesser known wonders. Unfortunately, both of them had to cancel due to work obligations, but I wasn't going to let that dampen my desire to head out for my first trip of the year.
Leaving before dawn, I made my way to the first site, thirty miles west of Tonopah, NV. The Sump, as it is known to locals, was considered for state park status in the 1930's, but apparently the state legislature of the time elected not to grant park status. The area seems to have almost fallen out of public knowledge, which is a shame due to the beauty of the area.
Leaving the highway for a rugged road up into the hilly desert, I make my way to the northern end of the site. From this view, it looks something like a miniature grand canyon, though white in color instead of the rich reds and golds of the national park. From what I gather from the few sources I have found online, the Sump is essentially a collapsed dry lake bed. Long ago, the area flooded and covered a thriving forest with thick mud. Eventually, the lake dried up and the muddy bottom began to erode, leaving the feature in front of me now.
As I explore the area, I can't help but notice how crumbly and fragile the whole area is. What appears to be stone is simply hyper-dried mud, which makes me somewhat unsure of my footing as I climb around the area with some perilous drop offs below me.
Driving around to the southern side, I realize how thankful I for having a jeep. As I drive over sagebrush and through the sand, I get stuck in the loose earth and beginning ever so slowly sliding down the hill, which puts me in danger of rolling. Drop it in 4-low and the rugged beast pulls itself out. Now parked on more solid ground, I explore a bit more. This time I see the feature that most drew my attention to the site - petrified trees stumps.
It seems many of those trees of the ancient forest were buried in mud while still standing. Now exposed to the elements, the mud has eroded away to reveal partially petrified stumps still standing. In most cases, the stumps have shattered into thousands of what I can only describe as Lego blocks littering the area of the revealed stump. Quite an amazing site to see.
While the area is remote, I have to say the Sump was well worth the trip.
While I have seen the feature film "The Last of the Mohicans" and thoroughly enjoyed not only the story, but also much of the majestic scenery shot for the film, I had to take advantage of visiting Chimney Rock State Park near Asheville, NC while visiting my mother-in-law for Christmas. Leaving around noon, my wife and I drove the hour and half or so to the park through some truly beautiful country. When we finally reached the Rocky Broad River cutting through the Hickory Nut Gorge, where the Chimney Rock stands an eternal vigil overlooking the valley below, I was struck by many memories of scenery from the movie. The sheer cliffs, over which Hickory Nut Falls runs are quite stunning.
Having crossed the river, we made our way up the winding mountain road through the park to the bottom of the elevator that would take us up to the Chimney Rock feature itself. An easy walk through a manmade cave took us directly to the elevator door, and then a 26 story elevator ride took us up to the main visitor area around the Chimney Rock. The views of the river valley from up there are broad and sweeping. The short stairway climb to the top of the feature revealed a natural wonder. The Chimney Rock appears like a free-standing thumb, attached but also independent of the neighboring cliffs. I would have expected the top of the feature to have been sanded off and paved over into a smooth surface, but to my pleasant surprise, it has been left alone. Other than installing a rod-iron railing and an American flag at the top, the feature has been left pretty much intact as it has probably appeared for countless millennia. This was refreshing, though entirely unexpected.
We snapped a few pictures of the gorgeous view and made our way back down the elevator to the car. While it was a little bit of a drive to get here, the views made it all worthwhile. I hope to return at some point in the future to explore some of the trails in the park.
Many years ago when I was a boy, I remember hiking to a small waterfall in the green wood near my home. It was while on a field trip. In the years since, I've often thought of place, but had no idea of it's exactly location. My directional skills were not so developed at that age. Only recently, I discovered that waterfall is called Beaver Falls and is approximately a mile and half back in the woods on the property of the Nature Institute, off of Levis Lane and up the bluffs behind Blue Pool.
As I was in St. Louis on business, I took a few extra days to visit with family and friends. I also planned a little time to revisit the small waterfall from my childhood memory. After arriving at the trailhead, I reviewed the posted map, which is little more than a few lines carved and painted into a piece of plywood and posted as an information an informational sign. I sprayed myself down with mosquito repellant, without which I probably would have been eaten alive by the little buggers in this humid wood above the Mississippi River's limestone bluffs. And then, I was off on my little adventure into the past.
At first, the trail was well cut, but as I proceeded I found it getting less and less easy to distinguish trail from woods. I also could not get a sense of direction in relation to the map. Eventually, I discovered this was due to my having taking a wrong turn. This was with the help of a referenced marker, noting the beginning of the Underground Railroad here at Hop Hollow. According to the marker, this was the jumping off point for thousands of slaves seeking freedom in the North prior to Lincoln's emancipation proclamation. A humbling site to be sure.
Continuing on, now with a better sense of where I was, I came across a small group of whitetail deer. I stopped to watch them as they foraged the area. After a few minutes, they had moved on and I made my way to the dry creek bed as described on the map. Unlike other creeks, which I was familiar with in the area, this one had many limestone steps as it made it's way downhill toward the mighty river below. During a year without the terrible drought we are now in, each of these steps would have produced a small waterfall onto itself.
Further upstream, or at least what would have been upstream, I came to a carved out area sunken below the surrounding woods. While it was dry and no water currently flowed over the fifteen foot-tall cliff directly in front of me, there was no mistaking this as the falls from my memory. In years past, there had been a small pool at what would have been the base of the falls. Over time, it appears that pool has been filled with silt and mud, but a good rain would probably bring it to life once again.
Having fulfilled my quest and found this place from my childhood, I headed back to the car. It was great to have visited this place once again and I look forward to returning again someday.
Not long after I moved to Reno several years ago, I took a long drive up through the Black Rock Desert of Northern Nevada and eventually came out not far from Crater Lake. It was early in the season, but not knowing the snow conditions, I decided to go ahead and visit the park. While I was unable to camp on that trip due to the snow, I was overwhelmed by the magnificent blue vastness of this natural wonder. As my wife and I have been on number of trips over the last couple of years, I wanted to share this beauty with her.
Leaving Lava Beds, we made our way to the city of Klamath Falls and while we had intended to camp this night, the extreme heat and my wife’s lack of sleep from the night before prompted us to get a hotel room before continuing on into the park. We had a wonderful dinner and rose early to finish the drive to Crater Lake, an hour or so beyond Klamath Falls.
Entering the park, it’s a very steep road up to the ridge of the collapsed volcano, which has filled with snowmelt to become one of the deepest lakes in the world. We stop at the visitor center to get a map and try to figure out exactly what we want to do, and then make our way up to the lodge, which sits on the ridge of the lake.
Upon one’s first viewing of Crater Lake, the extreme blueness cannot be over stated. Living near Lake Tahoe for many years now, I have some basis for comparison and there really is none. Crater Lake, as we are later told by a ranger, has been scientifically proven to be the clearest lake in the world, which also means that on a day like today the blue sky above gives the lake the most amazing color known. While always somewhat reserved, it’s pretty obvious that my wife is enthralled by the wonder in front of her eyes. We walk casually around a paved trail at the lodge and then down a steep path to the man-made Sinnott Memorial Lookout, which offers an unobstructed view of the lake. It is truly awe-inspiring.
After reviewing the map, we decide to take the short drive around the rim trail to the East to a spot called Sun Notch. It is our hope that we will be able to see the smaller of the two islands, Phantom Shop, from this vantage point. A short hike uphill puts us at a terrific altitude and looking down directly onto the Phantom Ship, which while small from this perspective is actually something like 5 stories tall above the surface of the water. How it got is name is obvious, as it has the general shape of a pirate ship sailing on the calm lake currents. Unlike the much larger and obvious at first glance Wizard Island, this little feature is tucked back into a quiet cove, which probably adds to it’s mystery.
We head back to the campground and begin to set up camp in the hopes of catching a quick nap before meeting some friends at the lodge’s dining room for a late dinner. We awake after an hour or so and drive back up to the lodge to enjoy a wonderful meal and some cheerful company. After dinner, we chat in the fire-warmed lobby of the lodge until nearly 1:00AM. Finally looking at the clock, I suggest we should head back to camp. We wish our friends a safe journey home and walk out of the warmth of the lodge. We are all immediately awestruck by the lack of artificial light outside and the multitude of stars above us. The Milky Way is clearly visible in the heavens over our heads, and with the lake in the foreground, I can’t imagine a more divine image. Truly, truly amazing to see with human eyes. If only, I had the camera equipment to capture the image . . .
Arriving back at our campsite, Cass and I bundle up for what will prove to be a fairly cold night in a tent. We awake the next morning, break camp, and begin the long drive back home. The trip was definitely worth it.
