Hampton Fire

In the last post I shared our hike up Mount Moriah. Today we're going to stay with the North Snake Range, where a small lightning-strike caused fire has been blown by strong, gusty winds into a large wildfire.

At first you might say, "Oh no, the poor forest is burning!"

What I'm saying, as an ecologist, is "Hurray, that forest really needs to burn! The aspens might have a chance of surviving if the encroaching conifers are burned back, and the bighorn sheep habitat should be vastly improved."

What my husband, the rancher, says, "Good, those canyons are overgrown with too many trees and fewer trees means more water will be coming out of the canyons."

What is certain is that over one hundred years of fire suppression has caused for some very dense understory. If you've ever tried to hike off-trail in the Snake Range, you know what I mean!

The fire was under a 100 acres for the first few days just in the Hampton watershed. Strong winds blew it over into Little Horse and Horse Canyons. The first night the fire got big, the ridgetop glowed at night.

Last night we took a drive out to see the fire better. (We saw quite a few other people out doing the same thing.)

The fire had been updated in size to 4500 acres, and we wanted to see it from a different angle. We drove up to the road towards Horse Canyon and found smoke emerging from several canyons, but it wasn't coming from the mouth of any of the canyons.

A helicopter flew over. More and more aircraft are involved with fires now. It can make it easier to see what's going on and to respond in some cases, but aircraft really add to the cost of a fire.

As the light faded, we saw headlights approaching from both Horse and Smith canyons. The Gila hotshots had been up there. While the fire was small, a wildfire monitoring crew from Colorado was stationed there. Now there are over 100 personnel on the fire since it covers much more ground. The fire is really cleaning a lot of forest!

This fire will likely be going on for some time, as no rain is in the forecast, and many of the flames are high up on steep hillsides where it's not safe for firefighters to go (plus those areas should burn anyway). The Forest Service supervisor is very happy with the fire, as it is burning in an area that they've wanted to have burn for a long time. The fire doesn't threaten any lives or structures. (It must be rare to have nearly a whole mountain range with no structures on it!)

For the most up-to-date information, check out the Ely Fire Facebook page.

Hiking up Mount Moriah in the North Snake Range, Nevada

 A few weekends ago we headed to the Mount Moriah Wilderness in the North Snake Range. After a very pleasant evening camping at the Big Canyon trailhead, we had a leisurely start to our destination: the top of Mount Moriah, at 12,050 feet. The trailhead is nearly 10,000 feet high, so we figured this wouldn't be that hard of a hike, especially since we had already conquered Wheeler Peak a few weeks previous. So we took the kids, and figured we'd be back in a few hours.

 The first part of the trail went down into Big Canyon, then crossed it at about 1 mile in, and then the trail got steep, heading up to the Table, a huge high-elevation plateau. Even though we had only hiked slightly over two miles and gained a bit over 1,000 feet in elevation, we were all getting hungry. We stopped to have lunch under one of the old bristlecones. Desert Girl was pleased with her double-double sandwich (a pb&j doubled over).

We were disturbing swarms of moths as we walked, and we saw the green gentian (elkweed) covered with the army cutworm (or "Millers") moths. Due to the mild winter, we've had an outstanding number of them this year.

 After lunch we continued on the trail towards Hendry's Creek, and then at a rock cairn headed up toward the peak.

It was so much fun when we got to a big patch of snow!

Desert Girl had to make a snowwoman. She was very bright in her tech t-shirt and pink tutu. I've long ago decided she can wear whatever she wants as long as she hikes.

Quite a variety of flowers were blooming, lending a nice distraction to the gain of elevation.

As we reached the saddle we found more snow and also a faint trail heading across the backside of the mountain.

 The trail turned out to be quite faint, but we all managed it.

The trail kept getting fainter and fainter, but we followed it around to the south end of the mountain (if I did it again, I would head up sooner, because there was no trail at the south end of the mountain).

Desert Girl got a ride up the last part, but Desert Boy had to do it on his own, with some coaxing.

We made it, though! Even our dog Henry got to the top. We carried extra water for him, as there is no water on the hike except if you find snow.

Desert Girl had fallen asleep, so my idea of a family photo on top of the mountain didn't work out. We took a little rest and signed into the register. The register is in stark contrast with the one at Wheeler Peak. More people climb Wheeler Peak in a single day then often climb Mount Moriah all summer. If you want some solitude, this is the place to come!

The views were outstanding. To the north we could see the wide table, and then off in the distance the Deep Creek Mountains, with Ibapah Peak topping out at 12,067 ft.

To the northeast we saw Gandy Salt Marsh and lake, with the Confusion Range and Fish Springs Range beyond.

To the southeast we saw EskDale and the Ferguson Desert.

To the south we saw Jeff Davis and Wheeler Peak and the South Snake Range.

And to the northwest we saw more of the North Snake Range. It really has a different character than the South Snake Range. It's a lot bumpier, for lack of a technical term. (If you'd like to learn about the geology, here's a link to the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Bulletin on the area.) Everywhere we looked we saw swarms of moths.

 It was 4.5 miles to get up to the top of the mountain coming around the backside. My husband and I looked at each other. We didn't want to go 4.5 miles back around, especially since Desert Girl was still asleep and so had to be hauled. We could see our truck parked at the trailhead, so we decided to go down the northwest slope, into a meadow, down a drainage, and meet up with the trail at the bottom of Big Canyon. Hopefully it wouldn't be too difficult.

 As we went down the steep slope (which showed evidence that other people had been using it too, making us feel better), I noticed some figures down on a flatter spot. I looked closer and realized we were seeing five bighorn sheep. Hurray!

They wandered off as we got closer, but then one came back to check us out.

Desert Girl woke up and was ready to hike again.

We descended quickly, and soon the peak looked far away up its northwest shoulder.

Before long we were in a limber and bristlecone forest, going down quickly into a meadow. It was steep!

We followed a gully back to the trail, and that part had some fun challenges for the kids.

Finally we made it back (that last part going up hill isn't easy)! It was a longer hike than we expected, with 4.5 miles up and 3.0 miles down and over 2,000 feet total elevation change. Desert Boy hiked the whole thing, and four-year old Desert Girl hiked 5.5 miles of it--she's going to be one awesome hiker. Below is our approximate route, looking south.

It was a great feeling to have accomplished that hike. The only people we saw all weekend were two guys leaving the trailhead area when we pulled in. We had the trail all to ourselves.

To learn more about Mount Moriah and the North Snake Range, check out Chapter 10 in my book Great Basin National Park: A Guidebook to the Park and Surrounding Area.

Happy hiking!

A Rural Milestone

 Out in the rural parts of this country, especially the rural parts that have livestock, cattle guards are a common occurrence. The cattle guards are essentially metal slats placed on a concrete foundation above a hole in the ground. They deter the cattle (and sheep) from crossing, but allow vehicles to easily cross.

For kids, they provide an obstacle course. Can they get across without their little feet slipping between the spaces? After they've done it a few times, it turns from fear into fun, and they look forward to crossing the cattle guards. It's a way to show that they're getting big, and every little kid seems to want to be a big kid right now.

Desert Girl loves cattle guards, so I wanted to get a couple photos of her simple pleasure!

When was the last time you walked across a cattle guard?

Destination: Angel Lake near Wells, Nevada

 One of Nevada's many mountain ranges is the East Humboldt Range, a 30-mile long range in the northeastern part of the state near Wells, Nevada. We decided to make it part of our July trip, largely because the 12-mile Angel Lake Scenic Byway (Nevada Highway 231, seasonally open) goes right up to Angel Lake in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

 The stormy weather didn't deter us as we climbed several thousand feet from the valley to the 8,379-foot elevation lake. Before the road gets really steep and windy is the Angel Creek Campground, which would be a good destination for those with bigger vehicles (like RVs). The Angel Lake Campground awaits those with smaller vehicles at the end of the road. There's a $5 parking fee at the end of the road for those who want to get out of their vehicles and check out the lake and/or picnic.

Lake Dimensions. The road takes you to within fifty feet of Angel Lake, named for Warren M. Angel of nearby Clover Valley. The lake covers 13 acres with a maximum depth of about 35 feet. A dam was added to the lake by early settlers to increase its capacity for irrigation.

Fish. The lake contains brook trout, rainbow trout, tiger trout, and speckled dace. According to the Nevada Department of Wildlife website about Angel Lake, about 4,800 rainbow trout are stocked during the summer. Creel surveys show anglers catch about 1 to 2 trout per hour, with a limit of five per day. Fish size is generally 8.5 to 11 inches.

My husband and kids decided to try their luck fishing, which is one of the most popular activities at the lake. I was ready to stretch my legs after the long car ride and set out for a hike around the lake.

Glaciology. Angel Lake is a tarn, otherwise known as a mountain lake formed in a cirque. A glacier once stood hundreds of feet high here, flowing down towards the valley below. (On the day we visited, the sky was hazy and the storms made it gray, so it was hard to see down to the desert below.)

One of the coolest things about visiting Angel Lake was thinking about the glaciers. The last glaciation in the Great Basin was called the Angel Lake glaciation, with the type locality being right where we were standing. Researchers Ben Laabs, Jeff Munroe, and others have conducted cosmogenic ¹⁰Be surface-exposure dating of boulders in the area. By studying the dates of how long boulders in moraines have been exposed, they've concluded that the end of the Angel Lake glaciation was 19,300 years ago, give or take 1,000 years. This was the same time that the Laurentide Ice Sheet was retreating. This was also before glaciers in the Sierra Nevada and Wasatch mountains retreated, and before the huge pleistocene Lakes Bonneville and Lahontan had reached their zenith. What does this timing mean? The researchers say that more research is needed.

Wildflowers. What comes after the glaciers leave? Pioneering plants like the bright fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium),  one of my favorite flowers. Fireweed likes to grow in areas that have been disturbed by  fires, avalanches, glacial retreats, and more. It likes lots of sun and can grow quickly.

Many other wildflowers were in abundance. The flora in the East Humboldts and nearby Ruby Mountains are similar to that in the Wasatch Mountains in Utah.

 And with plants come animals, like this beautiful blue butterfly.

 Wildlife. A couple rock wrens hung out with me as I took photos.

Probably the best-known birds on the mountain range are introduced Himalayan Snowcocks. They apparently are most-often found around Hole-in-the-Mountain peak, the highest peak of the range at 11,306 ft. The range also has bighorn sheep (with 20 reintroduced in February 2013), introduced mountain goats, mountain lions, mule deer, bobcat, coyote, and more.

Lakes and Hiking. Although Angel Lake is the most easily accessed lake in the East Humboldts, it's not the only lake. I was a bit surprised to find that the range has many more lakes, including Smith Lake, Greys Lake, Winchell Lake, Boulder Lakes, Lizzie's Basin, and Steele Lake. You can access some of them on the two main hiking trails: a four-mile hike to Winchell Lake that begins at a trailhead below Angel Lake on the paved road; and a 25-mile hike that begins at Angel Lake, goes around the north end of the range to Greys Lake 5 miles away on the west side, and then continues along the west side to Ackler Creek (11 miles) and Boulder Lake (18 miles).

To find out more about hiking to some of the other lakes, check out the details on this informative website about hiking in East Humboldts (and Rubies).

As often happens in the mountains, the storms passed and the sun came out, brightening the carpet of wildflowers. I was particularly impressed by the display of wildflowers, even though we were just at 8300 feet. The latitude and higher precipitation allows for a lower timberline and overall lower elevation for wildflowers that I expected to see at higher elevations.

Wilderness.  A quick note on wilderness: although you can drive to Angel Lake, most of the rest of the East Humboldt Range is accessible only by foot or horseback. In 1989, 36,000 acres were designated as the East Humboldt Wilderness.

Geology. The mountains rising above Angel Lake look beautiful, with Greys Peak at the top of the photo above at 10, 674 ft. The East Humboldt Range is a metamorphic core complex, meaning that the older rocks have been pushed up and are exposed instead of being overlain by younger rock layers. This allows you to look up from Angel Lake and see some of the oldest rocks in Nevada: 2.5 billion year old gneiss. How cool is that to see rocks so old from a lake that is not so old (at least geologically speaking!).

Lake core. The sun also beckoned an angler to go out in his float tube. That would be a really fun way to visit the lake! Researchers have taken a raft out on the lake to retrieve a sample of the bottom (a sediment core) to study the past climate of the area over the last 7,000 years. They were able to see ash from the Mount Mazama explosion (the one that created Crater Lake in Oregon). They also learned quite a bit more, which you can read about here.

 When I got back to the dam (probably a leisurely 45-60 minutes after I had set out around the lake), I found the angling success wasn't so good for my family.

 But the kids sure did have fun getting in the chilly water!

I'd like to go back to Angel Lake and the East Humboldts and check out more of the beautiful scenery.

 And if we time it right, we may make it again for the drag races in Wells.

Ah, you've got to love the desert!

I couldn't find much information about Angel Lake when we set out to go there. Hopefully this compilation will help those who desire to know more. And if you know of other websites about Angel Lake, please leave a comment! Thanks!