Mount Moriah

 After breakfast at Cleve Creek, we packed up our gear, headed across Spring Valley and headed up Fourmile Road to go join friends and family. Desert Boy really wanted to go play with his cousins. I wanted to see some of the beautiful northern Snake Range. We led the way for some friends who hadn't been up the rocky road.

 I had to stop a couple times for photos. Yelland Dry Lake bed wasn't dry--it had some water in it, reflecting the clouds.

 

The rabbitbrush was blooming, along with a few other flowers, but the peak flower season was over by a long ways.  The air was cool, but the aspens still all green.

 

When we got to the camp, we found that most of the adults had left to go hiking, but nearly all the kids (with a few adult supervisors) had decided not to go hiking, but rather hang around camp.

 Sam looks like he's mastered the art of hanging out!

 Desert Boy loved his hot chocolate--one of several that day. Then he disappeared into the woods with his cousins and friends to play shoot the animals and who knows what else.

 

Some of the teenagers emerged from the teenager tent for a short while.

 Desert Girl managed to accumulate an impressive amount of dirt. Finally she conked out and Chandra and I left Brian in charge of all the kids and headed out for a walk.

 Mount Moriah is in the background, and I had never noticed the neat looking ridge leading to a minor peak. I will have to get up there some time to do that hike!

 Chandra and I wandered on all roads, across a meadow, and came across this road. It was so tempting to keep following it. I think it goes down into Negro Canyon and out into Spring Valley. Hmmm, another hike for another day.

 

We took off uphill and found this aspen grove. The medium-sized aspens all looked fine, but the young ones were all dead. We went a little farther and then took a short-cut back to camp, which really was a short-cut. (Some times my short-cuts don't quite work out right, but this one did!)

 The kids were still all being good and Brian didn't even have to get out of his tent. :)

The kids were having a grand old time. They were making up all sorts of games, and Desert Boy came home with some new sayings.

After the hikers got back, we all gathered around the fire and then started cooking dinner. It was a nice, relaxed time, just what I needed!

Cleve Creek Canyon

 Friday night I took the kids to Cleve Creek Recreation Area for a night of camping with coworkers and friends. I was looking forward to exploring the area, as I hadn't seen much of it previously. It's located in the Shell Creek Range in White Pine County, Nevada. We accessed it via Spring Valley, off paved Highway 893. Then we turned onto a good gravel road for two miles.

The campsites were beautiful, with big shade trees, neat fireplaces, and the sound of the creek soothing our senses. It was time to relax and eat some delicious food!

I didn't try to take any photos, as the light was soon dim and the kids were a handful. At nine they wanted to go to bed, so I took them to the tent. Then they resisted going to sleep long enough that I was tired, too, and just stayed in the tent. It was probably a good thing, as Desert Girl started getting fussy at 3 a.m., despite the surprisingly warm evening. By 6 a.m., I had decided we had better get out of camp or everyone would be upset with us! So we piled into the truck and headed up the canyon.

The road forded the creek several times, so I was glad we had four-wheel drive and high clearance, as the creek was still running high. In fact, according to the nearby USGS gauge, it was about 13 cfs. The long-term record on this creek made it a study site for University of Nevada-Reno scientists to study the climate of the area, comparing pinyon pine growth to streamflow. You can see the interesting abstract for their article "A 550 Year Reconstruction of Streamflow Variability in Spring Valley, Nevada, USA" here.

I was very intrigued to see that most of the water in the creek was coming from the north fork of Cleve Creek. The road stayed to the west fork. I just had my Nevada atlas and not a more-detailed map, so I didn't know too much about what I was getting into. Sometimes it's more fun that way!

The atlas indicated pictographs, but we never could locate them. Instead, we did find an old cabin with tailing piles nearby. We got out to explore.

 We wandered around a bit.

 Near one of the tailings piles we saw an old mine entrance and this sign explaining about the importance of bats.

 A bat gate and culvert had been installed above the old mine entrance. According to the Geology and Mineral Resources of White Pine County, Nevada (Smith 1976), the Cleve Creek or Kolchek District was small and centered around the Kolchek mine. Miners searched for gold beginning in 1923 and found enough to construct a 4-ton amalgamation-concentration mill. Mining didn't last long, and the 15-person district soon was forgotten. In 1951, when tungsten prices were high, miners returned. They didn't find a tungsten ore body until 1953, but they did make a few shipments of gold in the meantime. The total recorded production of the district was 234 tons of gold ore containing 86 ounces of gold and 363 ounces of silver and 32 tons of tungsten ore.

 The single cabin was the only building we saw in the area, and the sun was just rising high enough to light up the canyon beyond.

The kids were taking their time, which gave me the opportunity to shoot some additional photos as the first rays of sun light touched the cabin.

 It would have been a beautiful place to have been a miner, at least for a few months each year. The rest of the time it would be beautiful but cold!

 While I was searching for other angles, I noticed some bees clinging onto this grass. I'm not sure what they were doing.

 One more cabin photo! I liked the old trees nearby. Most were poplar, but there was one locust.

Then we continued up the canyon on the rough road, rarely reaching 10 mph. It was 6 miles from the campsite to the end of the road. I hiked up what looked like the most-used route (it couldn't really be called a trail, as it was fairly indistinct and there was no trailhead, sign, or map). I soon reached the wilderness boundary marker (but it didn't say what wilderness).

I'm guessing this area is used by hunters more than any other interest group.

I scampered up the hillside to get a better vantage point. Two other vehicles were sharing the parking area with us, and one had passed us as we had been exploring the cabin.

Here's part of the road, where the tributary creek has jumped its channel and flowed down the road for awhile.

On the way back down, we stopped at the Kolchek Trail 078 trailhead. I'm guessing the trail goes back into the side canyon behind the Kolchek mine, but there was no map at the trailhead and my map didn't show a trail. If you know, leave a comment!

There were several side canyons that looked fascinating. A good excuse to go back and do more exploring. The fishing is also supposed to be good, but we hadn't brought any gear.

While some of the rock looked metamorphic, I also noticed quite a few limestone cliffs, and some had holes in them. Hmmm, caves?

The zoom showed that these holes might go back a body length or more. The kids weren't interested in checking them out. I don't know why not!

By the time we got back to camp, everyone was up (and some had left). We went over to join them for breakfast.

The kids and I had grits for the first time. I have learned to appreciate that camping is all about the food, and I sure enjoyed the culinary experience!

Desert Boy and Erik had a serious conversation. Desert Boy was certainly serious about how many marshmallows were in his hot chocolate.

Nice hair, eh?

The adventures continued soon after...

The Morning Commute

Traffic report this morning:
Watch out for some bovines cavorting on the ranch road. Especially beware of the young'uns, who are unpredictable and well, let's be honest here, a little dumb. They like to play dodge-vehicle, which really isn't the best game for longevity.

And now on to the weather report...

Off in the Underground

 Hope you had a great Labor Day weekend! I'm not quite ready for it to be over. And somehow the cleaning fairy didn't get the message that the entire house was supposed to be spotless by the end of the weekend. Or at least a little bit cleaner.

Well, I guess one of the reasons I don't sweat having a super clean house is that I keep going into holes in the ground and getting dirty. The past week I've had the opportunity to visit a bunch of those underground abodes, varying from giant holes that suddenly drop into darkness (like the one above) to fairly mellow trips with some good humor (like the one below).

I'm hoping to post more photos soon, but my Picasa is acting really strange and not showing me all my folders.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with another four-year old nugget:

"Mom, don't get those baby carrots, I don't like baby carrots."

"Okay, what should we get then?"

Pointing to a bag of regular-sized carrots. "Get the adult carrots. They're better."

Kid Stories

 Desert Girl's babysitters do amazing things with her hair. She got her first braids and first French braids last week. How cute! She doesn't sit still quite so well for me. I figure a clippie barrette is a good effort on my part.

So why is Desert Girl so upset? And what is she holding in her hands? And why is her mouth smeared with chocolate?

Ah, well we were trying to find fun zucchini recipes, and I found a zucchini-chocolate chip muffin recipe. The kids helped me make them, and I put the pans on the counter to cool off. We got busy doing other things, and the next thing I know, Desert Girl is walking into the living room with muffins clutched in her hands, leaving a trail of crumbs.

I wasn't so upset that she was eating them, it was the trail of crumbs I didn't like! So I promptly set her outside and started cleaning up the kitchen, where I found that she had pulled the entire muffin tray onto the floor and most of the muffins were lying upside down.

The next thing I hear is Desert Girl bawling outside. I go and look and find that she is extremely distraught that Henry has been helping her eat the muffins. She doesn't want to share!

One more quick story, before I forget it:

One evening we were driving home and saw a beautiful  rainbow, ending in one of our fields. Desert Boy noted it.

He said, "Mom, see that rainbow?"

I answered yes.

He said, "Do you know"

And before he finished, I was already grinning, expecting him to say, "where it ends?"

I should know better than to try and outguess a 4-year old.


Instead he finished with, "how to climb up the rainbow?"

Help, please!