Love Letter to the Great Basin: Nevada, Part 3

The drama of the Great Basin

What many know of North America's Great Basin, is that which they've seen driving from Las Vegas, or one of the other Basin cities (Reno, Salt Lake City) to wherever else it is they want to be. The sagebrush dominated high desert valleys crisscrossed by long, straight highways, are but one of the diverse communities created by this landlocked "super basin". Bounded primarily in the west by the Sierra Nevadas and the east by the Wasatch Range, rain that falls here will never find its way to the sea but seeps into ancient drains the shores of which have waxed and waned over millions of years. In case you don't know, I love this place.

The Great Basin

Grimes Point, near Fallon, provides some insight into the geological and archaeological history of the region. When I first visited the spot, my ocean going self wondered how this place in the desert could be called a "point". But in the distance are the visible lines of the shores of Lake Lahontan from 12,000 ago, and at my feet are the petroglyphs of people, who stood where I stand, then legitimately a point after 4,000 more years of the Lake's diminishing. 

A stopover at Grimes Point offers a look at
ancient shorelines.

Standing on this spot 12,000 years ago, I would have
had 400 feet of Lake Lahontan above my head.

I imagine the artist crouching behind this rock, waiting for a herd of pronghorn to come into range, suddenly seeing the dark surface as a scratchboard canvas.

8,000 year old selfie?

And I can find kinship with these people in that I, too, am often scanning the valley for pronghorn. 

The only hazard predicted by this sign is that I will nearly
drive off the road in excitement when I see it.

What would a representative our unique, endemic and prehistoric artiodactylid, the pronghorn say were it able to speak? "Don't call me antelope!" Despite being commonly referred to as such, the pronghorn is (much more interestingly, I reckon) in a family by itself, the last living representative of North America's 12 antilopcaprid species of the Pleistocene. I find them bizarre and worthy of jaw-dropping awe. When watching them run, I feel as if I've stepped into a time machine.

And from that time-traveling vantage point, I might see them pursued by the predator that may have driven the evolution of their record breaking speed: the American cheetah. I had no idea this cat of debated phylogeny (cougar or Old World cheetah?) existed until reading up on my pronghorn prehistory. What doesn't kill you makes you faster....

Pleistocene predator of the pronghorn, Miracinonyx trumani,
the American cheetah.

And the final word on pronghorns comes from Harry. This video is from a previous visit to the Basin in a warmer greener time. The first is Harry's first sight ever of these "glorified COWS" and the second his audible response (his beagle bay, rendered hoarse by the cutting of his vocal cords in the research lab of his youth), beneath our giggles. Also, running pronghorn.

The sagebrush community of the Great Basin valleys has its charms, but what I find the most thrilling are the mountain oases scattered throughout. Nevada is the most mountainous state in the US and each range has its own assemblage of wildlife, rendered unique as an island in a sea of desert. Looking up from the valley, the mountains look stark and dry, but as you wind your way up the canyons, a miracle of transformation occurs. I say miracle because, even now as I write of it, the memory of the unexpected wave of richness gives me goosebumps. Up every canyon road waits a hidden world.

At the entrance to Peavine Canyon---snow awaits.

A drive up into Peavine Canyon leads from the cold but dry desert, past the ruins of settler's cabins,  through the cottonwoods and willows of the riparian zone into a snowy wonderland. At first we pass tiny snow patches and a sugar-dusting of crystals but, as we ascend to the pinyon pine forest of the higher elevations we find abundant, virgin snow.

Peavine settlement circa 1890s. It seems a cold and lonely place to
live in winter, but this canyon is verdant after the thaw.

Harry, a California dog, finds leaping the best way to
navigate in snow.

My mom always liked a flocked Christmas tree---you know, the ones with the sprayed on plastic snow? Even now that I find them offensive, the smell of the flocking evokes memories of mom. She would have them custom flocked to her specifications: "Make it look like a tree blanketed in freshly fallen snow," she would tell the nurseryman. I think this is the look she was going for:

Pinyon pine in snow

Snow crystal decoration

Heading up Jet Canyon near Round Mountain, lead into woods of a very different color. Here it was shimmering river of fall gold. At times the branches closed in around the Jeep like the tube of a breaking wave. Lisa had previously explored this route on a Razor, but had confidence in the ability of the Jeep. "Are we driving in a creek bed now?!" I asked incredulously. "I think so, yeah." she says, nonplussed. The pack tumbles out to investigate a banquet of intriguing smells.

Lisa and the pack in the creek bed of Jet Canyon

The gathering of gold cottonwood leaves worthy of
Andy Goldsworthy.

I'm sure the Great Basin presented many challenges both those hoping to stay and those just wanting to get across on their way to California, but some homesteaders seem to have chosen wisely. While it is now abandoned but for the occasional cattle round up, Cloverdale Ranch seems perched in the perfect valley. I can't imagine what hardship motivated the residents to abandon such a place. While washed in autumn colors now, a river of green come springtime.

Cabin at Cloverdale waits for the return of its people

Looking out of the barn door at Cloverdale

Post and beam in the barn

Former residence now occupied only by barn owls and their prey

An ingeniously carved seat from which to
admire the view of the valley. Who else sat here, I wonder?

Finally I am going to cheat the seasons just a bit and and give you a peak at late spring wildflowers from my visit in June of 2012, when Lisa, the hounds and I ventured up into the Shoshone Mountain Range to the Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park. If you find yourself traveling across the Nevada and come upon a sign like this:

The real ghost town of Berlin, an abandoned mining town

Go. Just go. It is one of my favorite places in Nevada. It has an authentic ghost town (Berlin), and an extraordinary fossil deposit (Ichthyosaur), some of the Basin's finest spring wildflowers, pinyon pine forest, a view of the valley and a nice campground. Trust me. Go.

The fossils of 40 ichthyosaurs have been found in the park in
deposits similar to this one, a pile up of fish-like reptiles that met
a simultaneous, catastrophic death.

Prickly poppy, Argemone

Western pine elfin (Callophrys eryphon) on Prince's plume (Stanleya pinnata)
at Berlin-Ichthyosaur in spring.

As I ready to depart Eden and our Great Basin adventures, my heart is breaking a bit. It's easy to love Yellowstone and the warm beaches of the Outer Banks. Open your eyes just a bit wider and ready your aperture to slide in a blink from the grand landscapes to the detail of the smallest features, and you will love this place as I do. Just look.

Valley view from one of the Great Basin's mountain range islands of diversity