Back to the Western Great Basin - November 2020 - Part One

please remember you can click on a photo to see a larger version & highlighted text are links to additional information

 

Boulders, Benton, and Birthday

 

Do things/events always come in threes? We were after three things on this trip - boulders, Benton, and birthday. We planned to slip away from home ahead of an incoming winter storm. Three things delayed our departure for two days and changed our plans - fierce winds, plunging temperatures, and a murder.

 

The incoming storm was cold, an air mass with little moisture. We expected four inches of snow here at home, less out in the arid western Great Basin, our destination. I did a spot weather forecast for our possible Saturday night camping spot. Winds were predicted to top 65 mph. We have a lifetime of experience with high winds, enough to not venture out into them on purpose. We decided to delay departure until Sunday morning.

 

The snowfall ebbed here Sunday morning. Four inches were on the driveways and road. After clearing with the front mount snowblower on the Massey Ferguson, we did another weather check for our campsite. Prediction was for dying winds but an overnight low of 8°. Yup, that's cold but a check of road conditions added this information - chain controls on our 250 miles of travel. Let's see, 250 miles with a speed limit of 25 mph; ten hours of driving and then spend the night in 8° cold. We decided to delay departure until Monday morning.

 

Monday morning was cold, clear, and beautiful. It was a day the air finally felt clean of the relentless smoke from this season's unprecedented wildfires. We headed out. Chain controls were still up on 395 south of Bridgeport. We had a decision, travel on 395 or head over to 95 in Nevada. We delayed the decision until Holbrook Junction where we had cell service and rechecked road conditions. There was an update. 395 was now closed to all travel north of Bridgeport due to a "police investigation". Added was the closure would last all day. What was going on? A murder. A highway snowplow driver found two bodies, a husband and wife double homicide, along the road as he cleared snow. What an awful discovery.

 

The murder pushed us over to Nevada and highway 95. Nevada was beautiful with blinding white snow covered ground under a vast intense blue sky. We entered Fish Lake Valley from the north. We left the pavement on a snow covered dirt road, ours were the first tracks, and climbed into the White Mountains. The cold snow sang as it crunched under our tires. A level spot is hard to find in this canyon but we found a nice site.

 

 

 

 

 

The spot forecast was for a overnight low in the upper teens. It got a bit colder than that. The sun dropped below the high spine of the Whites at 3:45 pm. It was 38°. A half hour later it was 20°. When we returned from our night walk at 7:00 pm with faces numbed by the cold, the thermometer read 10°. It could drop below zero. We set the furnace on its lowest setting and heated the camper for overnight, a very rare occurrence for us.

 

We woke the next morning to a shroud of clouds that the rising sun was quickly dissipating. It had warmed during the night to 28°.  It was a spectacular morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Armed with our mugs of coffee, we explored.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The new snow triggered the wildlife migration out of the high country. The tracks left by deer, bighorn sheep, and feral horses told the story.

 

 

 

 

 

Although it would be fun to say the predators followed, these large lion tracks are from the day before - the interior of the track is frozen and windblown debris is seen in the depressions.

 

 

 

 

 

The horse, deer, and sheep tracks were newer, from overnight or earlier this morning. 

 

The lion's tracks included impressive tail drag.

 

 

 

 

 

A beautiful crisp morning in the mountains, hot coffee steaming our faces, and deciphering wildlife tracks in the new snow - it doesn't get any better than this.

 

 

 

 

 

But, we had another reason to be here. We had a search to commence. We packed up to drive to where we would begin.

 

 

 

 

 

We've had only a small bit of information on this site -

 

"A large flat midway up the canyon contains five rhyolite boulders covered with abstract and representational figures,"

 

But it was more than enough to get us motivated to find it. This was our seventh attempt to find the boulders. We found many amazing archeological evidence on the previous searches, but not the elusive boulders. Since our last time here I found two additional tidbits of information. One was provided by a fellow explorer known as ETAV8R. Thanks Eric.

 

We had a large area to cover. Here's our results.

 

A large rhyolite boulder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A nearby boulder had a large circle with lines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another boulder was covered with deeply inscribed petroglyphs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another large boulder had artwork on both sides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We believe we found four of the large boulders. One remains to be located. Do you think we'll return? I expect you know the answer.

 

Oh, how we love the bonus material we find with our searches!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We reached the bottom of Fish Lake Valley around 1:30 in the afternoon. Our tire tracks remained the only tracks in the snow. We stopped in a sunny spot and soaked up the sun's warmth as we relaxed with a nice lunch on the lee side of the truck. It was time to move on. We had more soaking to do and a reservation to keep.

 

Our adventure continues. You can click here for - Part Two.