If you’re reading this, you probably saw my previous post on this area. If not, just click the ‘previous’ link (blue back-arrow) at the top of the page.

As I started to continue my narrative in this post, I realized I hadn’t yet mentioned much in terms of specifics – – so, in case you want to visit this place:

REFUGE INFORMATION

Camping – Contrary to my previous post’s comment, dispersed camping is not permitted in the Refuge. The Refuge brochure states quite clearly that camping is permitted ONLY in designated areas. That said, there is plenty of evidence of off-site camping, but we’re generally not rule-breakers and we won’t do it. Also, there are plenty of camps scattered around the area, all free.

RV Park – – Peacock Mine hosts a small park, full hookups, $40/night. It’s about ten miles off NV140 on good graded dirt road. The only real reasons to stay there instead of Virgin Valley Camp is if you have to have hookups, or you’re going to do some mining.

Virgin Valley Camp (where we are) is likely the best of the camps, although we heard a good review of the western entrance CCC cabin. Virgin Valley Camp has lots of space, and it’s easy to get to (three miles in, the easiest by far). It also is the only camp with running drinking water and the hot spring pool. If you fish, the nearby ponds are stocked with cutthroat, and they had plenty of water even in this drought year.

Roads – – the Refuge roads are all dirt, no pavement other than NV140. The roads vary from near-highway condition, smooth-graded, 30-60mph ribbons, to rougher, rutted, 10-20mph tracks, to miserable, rock-garden, gouged-out Jeep-only trails that will shake your eyeballs loose in their sockets. You can drive here in a passenger car, a pickup truck, or a gnarly 4×4. You just have to pick your path judiciously. Lesser dirt roads can become impassable slithery slimy stripes of grease with the slightest application of moisture. If it’s going to rain, you want to be on or very near a graded road.

Wildlife and Geology – – this is most of what I write about in my posts, so I’ll just summarize here. Widely varied terrain, springs and seeps, lava plateaus and craggy canyons and gorges mingle with rolling hills. Pronghorn antelope, sage grouse, waterfowl, and the usual assortment of lizards, jackrabbits, rodents and such. We saw a badger along one Jeep road. The brochure says “bighorn sheep” but we have not seen any yet.

Weather – – toasty hot to bone-cracking cold. Sometimes in the same day. We went from 87F high on Friday to 55F high on Sunday. Last night’s low (early October) was 18F.

Little things – – Pack It Out – you have to take your trash with you, which is awkward when you’re 100 miles from anywhere. But it turns out, there’s a trash dumpster, for the public, just a mile west on NV140 at the rest stop. Pit Toilets are provided at some camps. The one near our site ran out of TP, so bring some. Gasoline is 60-100 miles away. Bring plenty. Denio is still listed in brochures and on road signs as having gas, but it DOES NOT. Fields does, 30 miles north of Denio. Also Adel, and of course points farther away. Water is, as far as I know, available only at Virgin Valley Camp and the RV Park at Peacock Mine.

From the hill to the east, you can see the wide-spaced camp sites, at least 100′ apart. Hot spring, water faucet, and a few more sites are to the left (south) of the picture.

The campground local pond (McGee) was once fishable, but is so heavily overgrown with reeds now that the signage is almost a joke. None of the people listed are likely to be able to reach the distant, brush-filled water. I guess that keeps the fish population up.

This is county road 8A, one of the super-graded dirt roads that completely traverses the entire Refuge (north-center to southwest). For this shot, we were pulled over on the shoulder, quaking in mock fear, and snapping pix as this guy – – and four more – – convoyed by, all hauling ranch equipment of various types. Almost the only traffic we saw all day. The dust was staggering.

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Friday took us on a far-flung dirt journey, off to almost the southwestern corner of the Refuge. We got to see some of the Refuge wildlife, and many sections of its geology as well.

Wild horses were running parallel to us, off of county road 34A. They’re spooky, probably due to the regular roundups to thin the population. Wild horses are NOT indigenous to the desert, and they compete heavily with species that are. But people love ’em for the image and spirit, so a base population is allowed to persist. There was a burro hanging with this bunch (unusual in my experience), but he wasn’t as quick, and fell back out of camera frame.

Sage grouse were all over the place, but also pretty spooky and hard to get a camera on before they’d flush. One of them was box-of-rocks stupid though, and just walked around while I took its picture.

Antelope are frequent, in numbers large and small. They too like to keep their distance, but honestly most of them stopped within rifle range (if you’re a decent marksman). But that was still far enough away (300+ yards) that even my big lens was working hard.

At the far end of the day’s travel, we got to Catnip Lake. It was nice to see a mapped lake with water in it, after our experience with the Big Springs Reservoir earlier (bone dry). We met a couple of ex-firefighters there, from our own neighborhood (wow). The wind was fierce, and they were NOT fishing that day because they figured they’d never get their boats back to the parking area. We chatted for a while about fire-fighting, the BLM, politics and other fun stuff. Nice couple of gents. They both had moved out of the Bay Area after retirement, tired of the crowds and traffic. And yet, they still wanted more peace, quiet, and solitude, which is why they ended up visiting Sheldon. Kindred spirits, I must say.

Returning to camp, we rubber-necked at all the varied terrain. Lots of lava-plateau features like table-top mountains, bluffs, and ranges. This region is the northern edge of the Great Basin, and was produced by plate tectonics and geologic lifting and stretching. The resulting landform combinations are endless.

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Saturday was a far-ranging day, in time but not miles. We drove southwest from camp, first on pretty good roads, but then on steadily decreasing surfaces until we were crawling along over rocks and ruts where walking-speed was too fast. Ralph’s gas mileage dropped down into single digits, but onward we plodded. Before the day ended, we had spent four driving hours covering about 20 miles roundtrip.

The area near NV140 is pretty populated, with the camp, DOT station, and more than a handful of mining “settlements”. The mining enclaves were all quite similar, albeit in different states of disrepair. Scattered about would be some heavy equipment, some trailers/RV’s, scratched-out dirt roads and some signs of diggings and tailings. I guess fire opals are worth money – – I still have to look that up.

With all the signs of population, there was, oddly, not a soul to be seen. We spent the entire day without seeing a person or vehicle. What we did see was more of the amazing variety of geology that surrounded us. Strange rock forms and colors around virtually every turn in the road.

Ralph’s not hiding – – there’s actually a skinny runty little dirt road that goes through all that brush. We stopped at the mouth of one of the many small canyons.

Lots of different sedimentary-based formations. Soft stuff, crumbles like chalk.

Found a little sit-stool just my size.

In some places, the ruggedness is literally indescribable.

The strange growths projecting from hillsides alerted us to the strata that lie behind the slopes.

“Serpents’ backbones” of lava ridges, row after row.

And there’s always a Gorgeous Gorge to crane our necks up at. It’s SO hard to understand the time and energy that form these things. It’s almost as if their entire purpose is for our wonder. This one is three miles long, just a mile northeast of Virgin Valley Campground. It’s called “Thousand Creek Gorge”. It’s so rugged, and the water is so wide, I’m not sure if it can be hiked without rock-climbing. There are many photos on Google Earth showing some very nice viewpoints, check them out. There’s also a road-accessible overlook in the middle of it (that we missed). We will go back again to give it a better exploration.

Saturday night was forecast to be a low of 31F. I always pay attention to these things, because if it gets too cold, Howie’s water pipes could freeze and break. In fact, I use the InReach weather service to get a new forecast every three days or so.

But that night, the forecast might as well have been a TV commercial, for all its accuracy. By 3AM, the outside temp was already in the 20’s, and by early morning I was looking at 18F !!! Fortunately, the water pipes are enclosed, and I have a thermometer (remote) in the water cabinet. But even that meter said the cabinet was at 29F. Dang. It won’t freeze right away, but it sure will eventually. I got up and ran some hot water (lukewarm by this time), hoping it would warm up the cabinet a bit. Nope.

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So Sunday morning, we got up as the day was just beginning to warm, and UH-OH! I heard the tell-tale rattle of the water pump, with no water running – – a sure sign of a leak. This is a classic situation, as those folks with frozen-pipe syndrome have learned many times over. Everything seems fine, until the ice thaws and the leak starts.

Some eye-rolling but slightly-frantic searching yielded nothing, until Karin went outside and shouted “I see it!!!”. It was actually not too hard to see – – the roof drip rails were raining. Turns out my new Turbokool evaporative air conditioner….  you know, the one that I forgot to turn off the water to…. froze/cracked its inlet valve and was soaking the rooftop. Oh well, it’s not hot enough (any more) to need A/C. Something new to fix when we get home.

After four days in the Sheldon, we had burned through most of Ralph’s gas, and thus on Sunday we decided to trek over to Adel, 60 miles to the west, for a fillup. The trip included descent/ascent of this three-mile-long 1000-foot grade (8%) carved into the bluff. There’s a cool hang-glider launch at the top.

Ralph’s gas gauge was banging on red/empty when we got to Adel, and I anticipated at least 18-19 gallons for the fillup. Hmmm, only 14 gallons. Double-checked, no explanation. Yet another little back-country-worry to ponder. The store gas-pump was absolutely ancient, an old mechanical beast. Could it be out of calibration? But could it be off by that much? Doubtful. I’ll just have to keep an eye on Ralph’s gauge and its behavior.

Adel was gifted with – – – well, gas and Internet. Not even groceries, which were a further 20-40 miles. So I pulled out my laptop, cleaned up and published my previous post, made a couple of phone calls and emails, and that was it for our visit to civilization. We zinged on back toward camp under a threatening sky. Middle of the afternoon, overcast, 42F outside and another freezing night ahead.

We took a brisk, chilly hike, came back and heated up Howie, and settled in for a cozy evening.

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Monday dawned windless and beautiful; the night had not been as cold, after all. We lazed around for quite a while and then decided to have a look around the area north of NV140. There is another big gorge up the road just a few miles, and we’d been wanting to explore it.

The gorge turned out to be adjacent to McKinney Camp, and old cattle camp long abandoned. Our first try was on a 4WD road, and we drove Ralph in a couple of miles and let him wait while we hiked toward where we thought the gorge would be.

We found some pleasant views, especially of the far table-top plateaus.

Karin delights in helping build/maintain rock cairns, so she added some stones to a remote cairn along the way.

There were even some  widespread scatterings of obsidian. You could probably gather a 5-gallon bucket of the stuff in an hour, there was so much lying around. Oddly, it was all fragments – – no large pieces at all.

When we finally spotted the gorge, it was way too far to hike, and the road was so rocky that Ralph couldn’t go any faster than a walk anyway. We had to look elsewhere. Down the road, there was a locked gate, much closer to the gorge, so we drove back out to the highway and down to the gate.

This turned out to be the (un-signed) route to McKinney Camp and the nearby gorge. A short hike in from the parking area got us to the old buildings and corrals.

Construction was impressive, with heavy, thick stone walls filled with mortar, built to stand the tests of time. I don’t know the date of origin, probably 1930’s-1940’s when all the CCC work was being done.

Off in the distance, the gorge beckoned. It was late afternoon, but there was an easy path and we headed toward it.

Getting closer, it was even more impressive. The walls were absolutely sheer – – we still don’t understand how these vertical notches are formed in the terrain. Erosion typically results in more gradual slopes.

We started hiking up into the narrow part of the gorge. The path was littered with scat from coyotes and horses, presumably territorial markings. (That’s why Karin is looking down so intently.)

As the trail started to get rougher and steeper, we checked our map position. The gorge turns left at the lighter-colored rock face, and goes a couple more miles back into the hills. Way too far for the day.

Turning around, we could see the distant plateau, but not the camp any more.

We exited the gorge to a chill overcast sky, but just as walked out into the open, the sun broke through and shone on the Camp. The distant ridges varied from sun to shadow and were all different hues. It was a very cool sight.

It was getting late, and cold. Overhead, an owl had already begun his night’s hunt. He looked at us carefully, but I think we weren’t on his menu. Probably just waiting for us to stir up some hapless little rodent.

We got back to Ralph and drove the few miles back to camp, feeling really good about the day’s hike and the sights seen. When we arrived, we found new neighbors, a couple of studly cyclists from French Glen (east side of the Cascades). They were out for a week, and a little surprised by the cold weather, but still game to pedal on. They really liked the hot spring.

Only one small chore left for the day, cook up some chicken on a (reluctant) BBQ. Dang thing wouldn’t stay lit, flickered on and off. Time to look for a new one (oh goodie!).

Tomorrow, we’re off to Oregon and the Owyhee Plateau.

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