Wild Nevada

I'm Chris Orr And I'm Dave Santina, and we are right outside of Las Vegas, where you can see a variety of wildlife throughout the year, and enjoy some incredible natural scenery, all in a place that is designed to be accessible to everyone. -

Chris

It's at the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, and you're gonna experience it all with us right now on Wild Nevada. -

Narrator

Support for Wild Nevada is provided by the William N. Pennington foundation. (gentle music) -

Female Narrator

The Nevada Division of Tourism provides inspiration for travelers, interested in creating their own Wild Nevada adventures. More information at TravelNevada.com. (gentle music) -

Narrator Two

The June S. Wisham Trust. (gentle music) -

Narrator Three

Support for Wild Nevada is proudly provided by Land Rover, Reno and Land Rover, Las Vegas. (gentle music) -

Narrator

Charles and Margaret Burbank, Millie hopper and Millard Reed, and by individual members. (gentle upbeat music) (gentle guitar strings) We're just outside the Desert Wildlife Refuge, which is about 20 miles Northwest of Las Vegas, but it feels like it's nowhere near the city, and we're gonna be exploring some of this surprisingly large area over the next couple of days. Now, the refuge has an impressive visitor center that we're gonna explore tomorrow, but today we're headed into what they call the back country for a little adventure, and joining us for today's fun is our friend Jim Boone. Good to see you.

- Hi, Chris. Nice to see you. -

Dave

Thanks for meeting us out here. Well, welcome to Desert Refuge. This is a big, wonderful place. It's got everything we would look for in a wild, and woolly back country.

(chuckles) Got a huge elevation range, and we'll be exploring some of the different vegetation types that we'll see as we drive out here. -

Chris

And I imagine there's just gotta be some wildlife since that's part of the name. -

Jim

Yeah, there's lots of wildlife out. The area was designated to protect the desert big horn sheep back in the 30s. And we're unlikely to see them today, because they like to hide out up in the high mountain peaks. -

Dave

They are good at it, but we'll see plenty of other things, I'm sure. -

Jim

Yes, yes. Well, we'll mostly be looking at the plants, because they don't get up and run away. (chuckles) You know, we'll be driving through big, open desert flats, narrow deep canyons, and that'll be a great day with lots of adventure. -

Narrator

The Refuge encompasses seven different unique elevation ranges or life zones, each with unique characteristics. We'll see as many as we can today starting only a few hundred yards up the road. So, we just got started and we're already stopping, (chuckles) and we're still very flat. So, where are we here?

One of the things we wanna look at today is the great range of elevation that we have out here. The lowest elevations in the Wildlife Refuge are about 2,500 feet, and the highest elevations up in the mountain peaks are about 10,000 feet. So, we're gonna stop along the way, and look at the plants and animals that did grow, and see the landscape as it changes. So, we're down here in the Salt Bush flats at about 2,800 feet, and down here we have these heavy clay soils, hardly anything can grow here, there's a lot of salt in it, and this Salt Bush is pretty much the only species that can grow down here.

-

Dave

What is it about the Salt Bush that allows it to grow here, when not much else will grow? -

Jim

The Salt Bush has really adapted for growing in salty soils with heavy clay, so this is really the kind of place where they excel at, they've really adapted to this kind of environment. An interesting place, it's hard to walk around in. So, let's head on up to the next elevation zone (chuckles) and take a look Sounds good. -

Dave

Alright. (gentle upbeat music) -

Narrator

Our second life zone is just a short drive up Mormon Well road. -

Chris

I feel like we're definitely in a little different landscape than we started. (chuckles) We are, we've come up to about 3,600 feet now, and the soils are very different, and the plants that grow here are very different, too. Well I know this is guy. (chuckles) Yeah, this is a Joshua tree.

It's curious, it's a very stunted one. We don't usually see them this small and this stunted looking, but we're here in a rain shadow, where our storms come from the West, they come over the spring mountain range, and it gets high in cold over 12,000 feet up there, and it wrings all the moisture, a lot of the moisture out of the clouds, and then by the time they get over here, there's just not enough humidity rain until it gets on up higher into the mountains. So, they're not just young, they are stunted because they can't grow any further based on the amount of water that's available. -

Jim

Exactly, where there's more rain, we'll see a lot more plants. And that's where we're headed next? Exactly. -

Narrator

Further up the road, Jim stops us for a prehistoric moment. -

Jim

Well, here we are at Snail Fossil Rock. And you can see by looking at all the snail fossils here, how it got its name. (chuckles) -

Chris

I was gonna say, I think the name must come from the fact that it's covered in snails. (chuckles) -

Dave

Safe bet. -

Jim

In fact, there's so many that when you walk up to it, you hardly even recognize it. So, back then, this would have been the bottom of the ocean, and it probably would have been flat. And it's hard to imagine why there would have been so many snails at the time, and something happened, maybe it was a mating swarm of snails, hard to say, but they all congregated here, and then for some reason they died. And you can see as you look, some of the, like the inside of the shell has been filled with the rock within the fossils themselves, that is really cool.

-

Dave

Some are dark and some are lighter, it's fascinating, It's kind of like a mystery. -

Jim

It is a mystery. How did this come to be? And you know, we're lucky in a way to be alive at this time, because eventually there's gonna be so many people coming out here, there's going to be a fence, and there's gonna be a sign that says, "stay behind the fence." -

Dave

Right. -

Jim

We're really lucky to be able to come out. (gentle upbeat music) -

Narrator

The road to the next life zone is anything but smooth. This is a four wheel drive, and high clearance road to be sure. After quite a few slow moving miles, we stopped in the third life zone. -

Jim

We are up at about 5,000 feet now, so where quite a bit higher than we were before. So, it's cooler up here, it gets a lot more rain up here. As we can see from example with this Joshua tree, the shrubs are much more robust up here. -

Chris

Well, and the leaves are longer, and he's much bigger, he's a beautiful example. -

Jim

It is, and we also have lots of other shrubs here. So, we have Black Brush, grows up at this elevation. We have some Mormon Tea here, we have some Mojave Asters here, these would have nice purple flowers in the spring time. And Joshua trees are fairly slow growing, right?

They are, yeah, they are. They call them a tree, but they're not really a tree. And they have branches and they have bark and stuff, but on the inside they don't have wood. They have a fibrous material, so there's no tree rings to count.

-

Chris

I remember as a kid, when I would go out into them Havi with my family and visit, and we'd look at the Joshua trees, I was always curious as to why some of them have so many branches. -

Jim

So, when the Joshua tree starts growing, it'll have a single stem, and until it flowers, it'll just grow with that single stem. And when it heals, it fills and forms a split. -

Chris

So, the more split it is, the more it's flowered. -

Jim

So, that's a relative way of aging it. -

Chris

To me, it's the quintessential desert vegetation, when you think of the Southern Nevada deserts, and we're still going to climb, right? We are, we're heading up now, we're gonna go through Pee-ka-boo Canyon, and then we'll climb up to Ponderosa pine forest at 7,000 feet. (gentle upbeat music) -

Narrator

A few more miles up the road, and Jim reveals one of his favorite viewpoints, the Yucca forest. (gentle upbeat music) The terrain change is noticeably as we head up into Pee-ka-boo Canyon and the next life zone. Jim has another notable landmark to show us. -

Jim

Well, now we're up about 5,500 feet in Pee-ka-boo Canyon. It's this long narrow Gorge cut through the mountains here, and in front of us, we can see the hole in the wall, the Pee-ka-boo. Oh, so that's what the canyon's named for. -

Jim

Yeah. And so if you're driving up the Canyon, it's really hard to spot it because you'd have to look back pretty far. -

Chris

Nice. What do you think made that happen, that hole? -

Jim

Well, it's a thin narrow piece in the Ridge. It's much narrower than it looks like up there, and just erosion and it eroded a hole all the way through. -

Chris

And with that elevation change, of course now we're seeing different vegetation again. -

Jim

We are, we're actually getting up now to where there's a whole lot of shrubs, and they're pretty much covering the ground. And we're starting to see a few Pinyon-juniper trees. We'll see quite a few more Pinyon-junipers farther up. Vegetation being so different up here, of course, the wildlife and the birds that we're gonna encounter up here are gonna be very different too.

They are, we're starting to get into mule deer up here, and lots of different kinds of birds. Orioles they nest up in here and lots and lots of sparrows, there'd be some warblers here and there. We'll be going up into the Pinyon-juniper forest next. (gentle upbeat music) -

Narrator

Now we're really seeing a different landscape, the temperature drops, and we're looking at trees that I don't normally associate with Southern Nevada. So, it's cooled off, snow is under our feet, I think we've gone higher up in elevation. We certainly have, we're up at 6,400 feet now, and we're in the Pinyon-juniper zone. -

Chris

And I can smell, I know that smell, that smells like what Sage, that smells like home to me, I know that smell. (chuckles) -

Jim

Yes, so we have a true Sage brush here. -

Dave

I just see some cones on, on some of these. Do they have a regular cycle time or time of year when you're gonna see more cones than others? -

Jim

Yeah, the cones ripened in the Fall, and it's a really important food source for wildlife, and for people, and so it was a very important food source for native people. They would all come up here in the Fall, and gather Pine nuts and Pinyon seeds, and store them for the winter, but also really important for a lot of species of wildlife. -

Chris

So, Juniper and Pinyon are they fairly fast growing, kind of trees? -

Jim

They are relatively fast. These are probably only a couple of hundred years old. So, up here we definitely expect to see mule deer. We're a lot closer to the big horns, and more likely to see them, there's mountain lions up here, and of course the whole of cadre of middle-sized mammals.

So, foxes and badgers and skunks, and all of those things are probably thick in these words. They mostly come out at night, so we're not gonna see much of them. -

Narrator

We have just enough daylight left for one more life zone, just a few miles North, and it feels like winter. Well, we've had to put on extra layers, and we've had some slippery footing, 'cause the amount of ice. So, we're definitely in a different place than we started. We certainly are, we're up about 7,000 feet now, and we're into the bottom edge of the Ponderosa pine zone.

So, now we have real pine trees around us, they have the long needles, all the other Pine we've seen have short needles. -

Chris

So, within how many miles did we change that much elevation, the whole trip was-- -

Jim

Probably about 20 miles drive. -

Dave

It seems like we've gone into three different states the way it's been, but it's amazing amount of change in a very short distance. It is and this whole notion of life zones was brought up by an ecologist back in about 1890, who was doing some early work out here. And he realized that when you're at the bottom level in the desert, and if you go up about a thousand feet to the next zone, that's pretty much equivalent to going North about 600 miles. -

Chris

And of course, these two zones that have had some snow also means water, which of course for the wildlife, the birds, the vegetation it's so important. One thing that is really nice about these trees is that they smell like butterscotch, and you can go and stick your nose in the crack, get a nice, good whiff of butterscotch. Any chance something will be in there, and tell you to get out of its butterscotch hole? (chuckles) Well, if they're warmer, there might be some bugs in there, but I think now bugs are pretty well frozen.

(chuckles) Okay, I just wanna make sure before I go butterscotch sniffing, that I'm not gonna get poked in the nose. -

Narrator

After six life zones, we might as well be on another planet from where we started. Jim is the perfect companion to take into the back country. He has given us one of our most memorable days. In the morning, we're are back at the Visitor Center, where park ranger Josh Contois is waiting.

Good morning. - Good morning. Welcome to the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. Good morning, thank you.

I'm glad you guys could make it today. We're excited be. Yeah, it's a great day out here today, so we're looking forward to it. Yeah, well, this is welcome to the Corn Creek Visitor Center.

This is the gateway to the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. -

Chris

And you know, we were up in the hills yesterday going through the life zones, and I think we're both ready for something maybe a little more laid back today. (chuckles) Yeah. -

Josh

You chose the right spot. And maybe get to see some wildlife? Absolutely, we actually saw Coyote this morning, maybe we'll see it again. -

Chris

That would be great -

Dave

Beautiful. Yeah, well wildlife is in your name, so we're holding you to it. (chuckles) We'll do our best to find some for you. And anybody can pop in here and visit the Visitor Center?

Absolutely. Our visitor center is open five days a week, it's generally closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but the trails are open 365 days a year, from sunrise to sunset. Excellent, so are we heading that direction trail wise? Yeah, we are gonna check out the trails right now.

-

Dave

Cool. -

Josh

All right, let's go. (upbeat music) All right, so we have a couple of different trails to explore today. I think we should start with our Jackrabbit Loop, go into our Bighorn, check out the Mortars at the end of the Whispering Ben Trail. We'll come back, check the Cayote Loop, and then we'll finish with the Birdsong Loop.

All told we're looking at about a mile and a half worth of trail. Oh, this sounds like a perfect opportunity to just stretch our legs and maybe do some birding. Absolutely, the first couple of trails are all ADA accessible, nice, flat and easy. The Birdsong's a little bit more moderate.

-

Chris

Sounds good. All right, let's make sure we grab a trail map so we don't get lost. (chuckles) Trust me, mile and a half, I can still get lost. (chuckles) -

Josh

All right, lets go. (gentle upbeat music) -

Josh

So, mockingbirds will actually compete with the Phainopepla, 'cause the Mockingbird is a year round resident, whereas the Phainopepla will actually come here, leave, and then come back. They actually breed twice, and so the Mockingbird sees the Phainopepla as an intruder and we'll actually chase off the Phainopepla. They both compete for the same resource, the Mistletoe berries. -

Chris

I was gonna say, does he eat the Mistletoe as well? -

Josh

Yeah, mm hmm. So, this is the Corn Creek Spring. This is where all the water comes from. A lot of folks are actually really surprised to learn that there's water here in the hottest dry spot in North America, -

Dave

It surprise me. -

Josh

Absolutely. And so the story of this water actually begins tens of thousands of years ago. Prior to what we know now as the Mojave desert, this area was actually had a much cooler and wetter climate. And then as the climate shifted and changed, the lakes and rivers dried up, and a lot of them moved underground.

Then as water precipitated through the soils, jetting higher elevation things like the springs, that hit eventually an permanent bedrock, and started to form an aquifer. Well, eventually that pressure formed a fault, which allowed all of that water to bubble up and form concrete here. (cheerful upbeat music) -

Chris

What a beautiful spot. -

Josh

Absolutely. -

Chris

Gorgeous sign too. -

Josh

It's great, yeah. We'd like to highlight the fact that the original inhabitants of this land, are the Southern Paiute or Nuwuvi. They still work with us actively as part of a working group, and planning group and actually helped design, and write all of our texts for the visitor center, and along the trails. -

Dave

Well, it's nice that you've got collaborative work, that results in such beautiful displays, because I love this, this artwork. And behind it you see the landscape, and the mountains and it's just a spectacular place. (cheerful upbeat music) So, this is a historic Paiute or Nuwuvi mortar. And this is the stone that they would have used in order to prepare their flour out of the Mesquite pod.

So, actually I have some Mesquite pods here, if you guys wanna take a look at some of these. -

Chris

You know, I think of Mesquite, and I think of it as a Bush, but I don't know that I necessarily thought of it as a crop. -

Josh

Yeah, so if you can not shake it, you can actually hear the seeds inside there. And this is when it's ground into flour, actually it's pretty sweet. You can still buy Mesquite flour at most grocery stores or health food stores today. -

Chris

So, did they take the seed out of the pod? -

Josh

They would grind the whole thing. -

Chris

Oh, the whole thing. -

Josh

And it's not just a Nuwuvi, and humans that enjoy these, actually all of the wildlife out here does as well. The coyote especially, this is one of the main staples out here, and so if we're walking on the trail, we see a pile scat that has a bunch of little seeds in it, It's because of Coyotes have been chewing on these Mesquite pods. But the rabbits will eat this, the mice will eat this, birds will eat this, this is a extremely important crop for all of them. I didn't realize that Coyotes eat Mesquite, I always thought that was just berries, I didn't realize it was seeds.

Coyotes are omnivores, they will eat whatever they can, and there's a lot of these out here to consume. (gentle music) -

Josh

I really wanna give a shout out to our now retired Chief Jack. He did a phenomenal job making these trails, ADA accessible. He spent countless hours researching the best material, the best application methods, and then did a fantastic job recruiting volunteer help, and teamwork that all contributed in order to resurface these. Now they're fully accessible for anyone to come and visit at any time of the year.

-

Dave

It makes it pretty special. -

Chris

And they're nice and wide, so if you needed some assistance you would be able to have it, If you were walking a couple across with a wheelchair, it's really nice. -

Josh

Absolutely. You know, wheelchairs, crutches, any sort of mobility issues, certainly can accommodate on that here. We have a pretty flat level grade, and just easy to follow, well designated. -

Chris

You know, when you think of a historic fence, I so often think I'm gonna see old wood, and I wasn't really expecting to see metal, and this kind of fencing. -

Josh

Absolutely. So, what we're looking at actually is the remnants of an old paddock for raising the desert big horn sheep. (gentle music) -

Narrator

As we continue on the path, we spot the coyote on the refuge, well, maybe he heard us talking about the sheep earlier. Unfortunately for him he's a few years too late. -

Chris

Definitely have a very different feeling trail than we were on. -

Josh

Absolutely, yeah. This accessible trail really makes it just a wonderful experience for anyone who comes to visit, and we're entering now area next to our Refugio, and our railroad tie cabin. This is probably the most visited spot on our trail system here at Corn Creek. Let's go check out the cabin.

People often wonder why do we have this log cabin here in the middle of a wildlife refuge, It seems kind of disjointed from what we're here for. Well the cabin actually predates the wildlife here. This was constructed in the early 1920s out of railroad ties. So, where Highway 95 runs now between Las Vegas, and Tonopah used to be a railroad grade there, it was the Las Vegas, Tonopah railroad.

When that railroad went under, folks came out and they started collecting the wood. If you notice around us, there's not a whole lot of trees out here. -

Dave

Right. -

Chris

Definitely not that size (chuckles). -

Josh

So, having large plain wood was a huge commodity. And they would actually go out there with a wagon or on their backs one at a time, and start harvesting these ties to bring them in and construct with them. So, the Richardson family that owned this land before it became a refuge, constructed this house, and it has been here ever since. -

Dave

What's it like inside? -

Josh

Let's go check it out. -

Dave

Oh, cool. (gentle music) -

Josh

Welcome inside the cabin. -

Chris

It's like Walking into history. -

Josh

Yeah, it's like walking back in time. -

Dave

It's cool, so they really lived here? Absolutely. Yeah. So, the cabin was restored in 2007, but a lot of the original timbers remained.

The foundation is the same, some of the ceiling panels and framing has been restored, but we wanna keep things accurate, and as close to history as possible. (guitar stings) -

Josh

So, now that we've seen the railroad tie cabin, I bet you're looking at these trail markers here a little different. -

Dave

Yeah, completely, now that I know what they are. -

Josh

Absolutely. So, welcome to our Refugium. -

Dave

A Refugium think refuge meets aquarium, Refugium. The fish that are housed in here are the Pahrump poolfish, and they're actually extinct in the wild. Really? - Yep.

How are they even here then? Well, back in 1975, we noticed that the Springs were drying up where these fish were native to, and so US Fish and Wildlife went in there, and collected the last 29 of the species, and moved them into these refuge population. So, this is actually a specie sanctuary. Absolutely, yep.

And there's actually two tanks here, there's a North and a South. That's a really cool. Should we go and take a look at them? -

Dave And Chris

Yeah. -

Dave

Let's just go and see if we can spot them. (guitar strings) These fish are only a couple inches across, so you might have to really look to see them. (guitar strings) The males will be more blue. -

Narrator

Once our eyes adjust to the dark, we start to see the fish. The tanks protect them from predators, and allow them a safe place to reproduce. In recent years the poolfish have been introduced to nearby Creeks, but they have to compete with invasive species, so it's safer here in the Refugium. Josh has one more attraction to show off, the Refuge's Visitor Center.

-

Chris

What a beautiful building. Yeah, so welcome to the visitor center. -

Dave

Oh, this is a really well put together, this is gorgeous. -

Josh

Yeah, it's a fantastic facility. Can't wait to show it to you. -

Dave

Let's go play. - Alright. (bright upbeat music) Uuh -

Narrator

The exhibits are well-designed, informative and just plain fun. Here, you can learn more about the flora and fauna of the region, and even test your ability to identify animals by smell or by the sound of their call, It's not Corbin, so I'm gonna go with Raptor. -

Dave

Golden Eagle. I wouldn't have known it was an Eagle. Okay. (gentle music) -

Narrator

Plus anytime there's an indoor cave, you know you're in a cool place. (guitar strings) Uuh Uuh -

Narrator

There's a large map of the entire refuge, and you can see a diagram of all of the life zones found inside the borders. Look at this one, it kind of describes our day yesterday. Yeah, (chuckles) that's yesterday in a nutshell. Uuh -

Narrator

This is an excellent way in which to wind down our day at the refuge, and to be reminded of all we experienced over the past two days. What a beautiful facility. Truly fun to visit and an enjoyable day indoors and out. You know, the exhibits and the visitor center, and how well it's all laid out, and then you walk outside, and the trail system are so well signed and accessible.

This is truly a place anybody could and should visit. And I got to go birding. Yeah, nice. It's always a bonus for me.

So, I got a Phainopepla, I got Mockingbird, I got a hawk, and then we even got to see the Cayote. Yeah, we got to see a lot more wildlife than I might've expected. And then this was a great complimentary day to yesterday, where we had a much less accessible day, but with the help of Jim Boone, we got to see those life zones, and that was a really memorable and educational. And I will always remember the site of that Yucca forest, that was spectacular.

It was an epic day, muddy, but epic day. (chuckles) Most definitely. For more about this Wild Nevada, and any of our trips, you can go to pbsreno.org. We wanna say thank you for traveling along with us, and until our next trip, here's hoping you can enjoy some wild Nevada adventures of your own.

(guitar strings) -

Narrator

Support for wild Nevada is provided by the William N. Pennington Foundation. (guitar strings) -

Female Narrator

The Nevada Division of Tourism provides inspiration for travelers, interested in creating their own Wild Nevada adventures. More information at TravelNevada.com. -

Narrator two

The June S. Wisham Trust. -

Narrator Three

Support for Wild Nevada is proudly provided by Land Rover, Reno and Land Rover, Las Vegas. (guitar strings) -

Narrator

Charles and Margaret Burbank, Millie hopper and Millard Reed, and by individual members. (bright guitar music)