Eastern Sierra Nevada - August 2021

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Home Waters

 

We weren't in a hurry Sunday morning, but we are early risers. The Lady finished her first round of exercises as I finished putting packs and duffels in the camper. Highway 88 was open again from the Tamarack Fire so it was an easy drive over to intersect with 395 and fill up the truck with cheaper Nevada gas.

 

We had two nights available to spend out. Where to go? No real plans, lots of possibilities, it would come to us.  We were in the Walker River canyon south of Walker when it came to me. I made the suggestion to the Lady. "The access is intimidating," I added. "There will be a good chance we'll be alone up there." The Lady agreed.

 

Our camp was set up and we were settled in by noon.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a high country headwater stream, a tributary to the  Walker River. It is home waters of the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout.

 

 

 

 

 

This was our third visit up here. The stream is open to fishing but with special regulations, catch and release only and single barbless hook on an artificial lure. I did not want to fish. The stream was twice as low as I've seen before, a consequence of our extreme drought. It did not want to further stress this native, remnant population of this threatened species of trout.

 

 

 

 

 

The stream travels through several small, beautiful meadows.

 

 

 

 

 

The sky was clear of wildfire smoke and clouds built throughout the day. The high temperature was hot, in the mid eighties, here at 8600 feet.

 

We spent the afternoon carefully working the edge of the creek and spotting trout. The Lady took the opportunity for her first barefoot excursion on river rocks since her right knee replacement. It takes work to learn to trust a new joint and your muscles again on uneven terrain.

 

 

 

 

 

We took two and a half hours to walk along .75 mile of creek. The meadows, long protected from cattle grazing, are in good shape but stressed from heat and drought. Here on the first of August, many of the stream side willows are already turning yellow. We found two fellows fly fishing. We made a wide circle around them so not to disturb. We weren't quite alone up here, but only two others in the area was pretty darn good. They drove out in the late afternoon.

 

Our evening walk was back up the valley in the dimming light.

 

 

 

 

 

Clouds had boiled around us all afternoon but we stayed free of storm.

 

 

 

 

 

Lake Lahontan, a huge pluvial lake, was at its peak water level 12,700 years ago. It filled a large area of western Nevada and was fed from the west by the Truckee River system, the Carson River system, and the Walker River system. As the glaciers receded and the climate warmed, the water level of ancient Lake Lahontan dropped and now only Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake remain. Large trout evolved in this rich ecosystem and ran up the inflow rivers to spawn. As the environment changed, small populations remained in tiny headwater streams and no longer moved down to the lakes.

 

When immigrant migration moved into this area with the California Gold Rush, Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake held abundant and remarkable trout, in fact some of the largest trout in the world. The upstream spawning runs must have been incredible. Higher up on the Truckee River, Lake Tahoe also held huge Lahontan Cutthroat trout. These were the large fish Mark Twain wrote about seeing in Lake Tahoe in his book Roughing It.

 

All that changed as we went to work and drove this species of trout to the brink of extinction.

 

Completed in 1905, Derby Dam on the Truckee River was the Bureau of Reclamation's first dam project. It diverted water from the Truckee River to create the "Oasis in the Desert", the agricultural lands around Fallon, Nevada. Derby Dam also blocked Pyramid Lake's Lahontan Cutthroat from moving upstream to their spawning beds. Oops, no spawning, no trout, and these trout quickly spiraled toward extinction. The current replacement cutthroat fishery in Pyramid Lake is a product of hatchery production. It seems to take us a long time to learn from and attempt to rectify our mistakes. In 2019 construction was started on a structure that will allow passage of Lahontan Cutthroat trout back up to their ancestral spawning grounds -

Back after more than a century.

 

The Lahontan Cutthroat in Walker Lake  faced a similar fate but not from a dam. Upstream water diversions devastated habitat. Take all the water away and trout die. That should not be hard to comprehend. With no inflow into the lake, Walker Lake is now too alkaline to support any fish life. Walker Lake is dead. These signs placed along the West Walker River in the West Walker Canyon tell the story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately the last sign above didn't get proper proof reading prior to being placed. Walker Lake does not "still produce world class fishing." Fish cannot survive in Walker Lake today. The last sentence is correct though - "Several genetically pure remnant populations of this threatened species are maintained in remote tributaries of the Walker River" - home waters.

 

It took only a century and a half to almost destroy an once incredible fishery and beat this trout species to the edge of extinction. So it was an honor for Julie and me to spend a couple of days in one of the remaining refuges. 

Besides a chance to spend time with these trout, Monday was also Julie's first real hike after her right knee replacement. I could have subtitled this blog post, "On the Trail to Recovery."

 

We headed up into the upper meadows of this small stream. It was only 2.5 miles on an unmaintained trail, but we would take all day. The Lady took many happy breaks to "ice" her knee.

 

 

 

 

 

The water was cold and the Lady repeated over and over, "This is better icing than I can do at home!"

 

The upper meadows sit at 9000 feet, just below the crest of the Sierra Nevada.

 

 

 

 

 

Spring time with its flowers was still hanging on at this elevation.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I noted two concerns with the stream conditions. One was the low water flow. I expect it will be possible to find only remnant pools of water up here come October. Second was silt in the stream bed. We've had recent thunderstorms with cloudbursts that carried loads of silt into our rivers and streams. With two years now of very low snow packs, we've not had snow melt runoff of a volume to flush streams of these sediments. This will be evident in coming photos.

 

We spent a few hours in the upper meadows. The solitude was cleansing. We were alone and at home.

 

 

 

 

 

We lazily and carefully moved along the creek and looked for trout.

 

 

 

 

 

Trout need clean gravels to spawn, lay eggs, and for their offspring to survive. This is the concern about sediments. But we did see several tiny fingerlings, baby native Lahontan Cutthroat trout.

 

 

 

 

 

With the clear water, the trout are extremely wary. It takes stealth to not disturb them. And, we did not want to disturb.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a rough trail up into the upper meadows. The lady did extremely well and showed no repercussions from this first hike. She is officially on the trail to recovery.

 

After dinner, we revisited the "big rock". This is a huge block of granite that has broken in two and displays classic examples of how exposed granite fractures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also noted what happens with lodgepole pines when they spout and grow close to big rocks.

 

 

 

 

 

The mornings here were wonderfully cool, in the lower forties. We took one last walk at first light with our mugs of coffee before heading back home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home waters are indeed very special places. Let's treasure them.

 

 

 

White Mountains - July 2021

 

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

 

Unfinished Business

 

You didn't think we'd give up, did you? Over the last few years I've written about our continuing search for an elusive ancient rock art site. Our seventh "expedition" to search was back in November 2020. One item was left to find so continuing the search was a good goal for this short trip. We don't give up.

 

Our usual routes - highways 88, 89, 395 - to the east side of the Sierra Nevada and the White Mountains were closed due to the Tamarack Fire. This necessitated a long detour out into Nevada prior to heading south. We were still able to be set up in the high canyon in the northern White Mountains by mid afternoon. The sky was clear of wildfire smoke and clouds were building.

 

 

 

 

 

Rain drove us into the camper just as we finished dinner. We waited out the rain with doing the dishes and a round of Scrabble. The Lady whooped me good. It cleared enough to chance an evening walk. The sky and light were dramatic and the temperature was delightfully cool. The scent of sage was intense, stirred to life by the rain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Morning light was subdued with high clouds to the east over the Great Basin.

 

 

 

 

 

Our information about the rock art site was scant. Here's a piece -

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

We had found much more than this, but one petroglyph described in the research paper still eluded us. Our search began after breakfast.

 

Every flat surface was snow covered our last time out here so we were delighted to find several of the flat rocks had grinding mortars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also found an abundance of obsidian flakes on the ground from point and tool making. Although the majority of the obsidian was jet black, many pieces were of mahogany obsidian.  This excited us because we have visited a source of mahogany obsidian in Queen Valley on the other side of the range. Here is a broken arrowhead of mahogany obsidian we found and it, of course, remains in place where we found it.

 

 

 

 

 

We relocated all of the large rhyolite boulders we had previously found.

 

 

 

 

 

We also found a work station with a view and deeply worn surface.

 

 

 

 

 

But after a two and a half hour thorough search, we still had not found the missing petroglyph. Here is the description and why we were determined to find it.

"One of the most striking panels is a sunburst nearly 1.8 m (6 ft) across. It is located so that the viewer looks down-canyon to the east and toward the sunrise at the same time as viewing the panel" additionally - "When looking at the panel, the observer is facing east, down-canyon, toward the ........... The sunburst glyph rises out of a long groove that matches the skyline"

 

After a lunch break we returned to the search area and began anew. We searched and covered every piece of ground once, twice, three times. We don't give up. We reviewed all of the boulders and petroglyph panels we had found.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were especially intrigued with this set of boulders with a rock alignment in front.

 

 

 

 

 

We were also intrigued with the different glyphs with concentric circles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After another 2.5 hours we still did not find the sunburst we sought. I shared my thoughts with the Lady.

"We are missing something. We have searched everywhere and found everything mentioned in the research paper. What's up?" The Lady nodded in agreement. I continued, "It is here. We've missed it. We've got something wrong or that research paper's got something wrong. It is here somewhere."

 

We shared our bottles of water and pondered it all.

"None of the boulders have a view to the east." I began my thought process out loud.

"But there are no other boulders to be found. As the glyph is described, it is large. It has to be on a very large boulder. Let's return to the largest boulder we've found."

The Lady agreed it was worth a try and we set off again. We had marked and saved the coordinate locations of every item we found, but by this time they were not needed. We knew the  area like the back of our hands.

 

We returned to the boulder. It sits in a grove of pinyon pines, as do all the other boulders. There is no view down canyon. We walked over to its west side and looked. It was old, it was faint, most of its grooves were filled with lichen, but the sunburst rising sun was there. We had found it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we had also found it back in November - even included a photo it can be seen in (to the left) in our blog story - but had never realized it.

 

 

 

 

 

We had a good laugh over it all and we celebrated our success.

 

It was quiet here. Only one vehicle had driven up the road early in the morning. We had seen no one the previous day. Rain came earlier this late afternoon, shortly after our showers, as we were relaxing. The chairs were stashed under the truck and we made and ate dinner inside the camper. Thunder boomed and echoed in the canyons. The storm was centered over the canyon to the south. Rain drops splattered on the roof. The smell of rain was intoxicating, so fresh and vibrant. The earth smelled wet and alive. And the sage? Oh, the sage.

 

The Lady was determined to get in an evening walk. She loves to be outside and she had found patches of coyote mint I knew she wanted to roll in. Her eyes were glued to the windows as the storm broke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Let's go!" she announced as the splattering ceased on the roof. Off we went. We made it about a half mile before the clouds opened up again. Remember the Lady is rehabbing her recent knee replacement? She is just starting to take walks on uneven terrain. No way can she run. We got good and wet, and like finding that sunburst rising sun, we laughed about it.

 

Since I mentioned the ongoing knee rehab, at the beginning of our stay up this canyon and with the rain she announced, "I figured out how I can do all my exercises in the camper!"

 

 

 

 

 

We woke the next morning in the cool clean air. We had slept so well.

"What should we do today?" the Lady asked. She had been so focused on those five boulders she hadn't thought any further.

I answered, "We can drop into Fish Lake Valley and head south and hit 168. We can take that back up into the Whites and make another stop at White Mountain City........"

"And look for the arrastras!" she shouted as she happily interrupted. I had no doubt I'd get this reaction.

 

 

After topping off the gas tank in Fish Lake Valley, Nevada at $4.82 a gallon, we arrived back at the remains of White Mountain City.

 

 

 

 

Our friend, The Sagebrush Reconnoiterer, after our first visit to White Mountain City last November, asked, "Did you see the arrastras?"

An arrastra is a primitive method used to crush rock. For explanation, here's a link to our friend Aaron's Western Mining History website - Arrastras.

When we answered Sagebrush in the negative, he offered a Mr. Phelps Mission Impossible style challenge and added, "I could send you the coordinates but know you wouldn't want them."

Light the fuse and start the theme music.

 

The remains of White Mountain City are fascinating to wander through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the first arrastra we found.

 

 

 

 

 

Several drag stones remain on site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We found another small arrastra close by with impressive drag stones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We continued our search, each of us taking different areas. "Here's a good one!" the Lady announced and called me over to see. "I found this one!" she said.

 

She whooped me in Scrabble but at least we tied in arrastra finding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More unfinished business was taken care of, and mission accomplished. Thanks for the challenge Sagebrush Reconnoiterer!

 

Addition: After publishing this story, we heard from our friend the Sagebrush Reconnoiterer, - "Well, Mr. Phelps, it appears that you have found an arrastra that I don’t recognize or remember. Now I have unfinished business."

 

Note - several of the Reconnoiterer's photos are used in the link above for White Mountain City.

 

I want to add an important aside to this story. If you've ever been curious why there's a primitive road up Silver Canyon and down Wyman Canyon, here's the reason. I hoped you have noticed in the White Mountain City photos the power poles in the background. They run all the way up Silver Canyon on the west side of the White Mountains and down Wyman Canyon on the east side of the Whites. This power line is of great historical significance. In 1905 a hydroelectric power plant was built on Bishop Creek in the Sierra Nevada west of Bishop to supply electricity to the growing mining towns of Nevada - Goldfield, Tonopah, Rhyolite. Along with the generation plant one of the longest power lines in the world at the time was constructed up and over the White Mountains and into Nevada. Here is a link to an excellent article - Feasting on Power.  

 

It was 90° in White Mountain City so it was time to head up to cooler temperatures. We started up Wyman Canyon but not before I handed the Lady a copy of a mid 1960's research paper I had found.

"There's something I'd like you to read in there about an archeology site." I pointed to the item. "It's somewhere in Wyman Canyon. We should look for it." I engaged four wheel drive and started up. The Lady started laughing.

"Why are you laughing about archeology?" I asked.

"Five boulders!" she said, almost in tears from laughing. "Another rock art site on five boulders! Do you know how many trips this could take to find?"

 

We made our first reconnaissance of potential search areas and discovered places where it is not. Progress. Do you think we'll give up?

 

We had lunch at the old Roberts Ranch in Wyman Canyon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We reached the crest of the White Mountains mid afternoon, pleased we had seen or met no other vehicles on our drive up Wyman Canyon. It was Saturday but we were confident our usual dispersed campsite would be empty. It was.

 

 

 

 

 

Actually we were both quite pleased how few other people we had encountered this trip. Are people back to bars, amusement parks, events, and such? We sure hope so.

 

The clouds had rolled in all afternoon and the sky remained mostly overcast although we did not get any rain. We took a nice walk before bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And another nice walk at sunrise.

 

 

 

 

 

It was time to head back toward home. We dropped down into the Owens Valley and turned north on 395. We spent about three hours in the morning in the Bishop area in the near 100° heat. I had pointed out another item in that old paper to the Lady. We did not find it. We were returning home with more unfinished business than we started the trip with. That makes it a good trip.

 

We arrived mid afternoon at what we've called "Ted's Camp" for several years. A thunderstorm was banging away over the Sierra crest.

 

 

 

 

 

We sat outside in the cool weather. The mountain bluebirds were so abundant we have officially changed the name to "Mountain Bluebird Camp."

 

 

 

 

 

We walked in the evening, again tempting fate with the coming rain. I loved the light on the long lateral glacial moraine that we were camped on, marking the path of the glacier that carved the Virginia Lakes area.

 

 

 

 

 

We got back to the camper a few minutes before the rain began and we fell asleep with the drumming on the camper roof and smothered in the scent of mountain rain.

 

Sunrise the next morning revealed wildfire smoke was now pushing this far south.

 

 

 

 

 

Highway 395 to the north had opened that morning allowing us a shorter journey home but through the smoldering Tamarack Fire burn along the highway. So sad.

 

I expect we'll be posting more stories on unfinished business.