Wild Nevada

This time on "Wild Nevada," I'm gonna show you how much color you can find in the desert. I'm visiting the Lake Mead National Recreation Area and exploring layers of beauty. That's all up next on "Wild Nevada." -

Male narrator

Support for "Wild Nevada" is provided by the William N. Pennington Foundation. (pleasant guitar 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. -

Male Narrator

The June S. Wisham Trust. (pleasant guitar music) Support for "Wild Nevada" is proudly provided by Land Rover Reno and Land Rover Las Vegas. (pleasant guitar music) Charles and Margaret Burback.

(pleasant guitar music) Millie Hopper and Millard Reed. And by individual members. (pleasant guitar music) (upbeat guitar music) I'm starting today in the Northern portion of Lake Mead. I'm about 60 miles north and east of Las Vegas, and I'm gonna be exploring Lake Mead National Recreation Area with Chelsea Kennedy.

Thank you for meeting me today. Absolutely, I'm happy to be here. You know, and so often, you think about Lake Mead, you think about the lake, but we're gonna actually explore some of the other areas. Yeah, we're gonna be exploring some of the different land-based recreation opportunities that are available here within the park.

You know, and we say we're not gonna go out onto the water, but I'm hearing water right now. You are, so there's a little bit of a waterfall here at Rogers Springs, and that's because it's a naturally occurring hot spring that falls into two different pools. So anytime you find water in the desert, it's usually a pretty good resource, so I'm guessing people have been stopping here for a long time. They have been.

The people of St. Thomas originally used this area to feed their crops, and they used the whole water system to bring the water all the way down there. You know, very often when you think about hot springs, you think of that sulfur smell, and you don't get any of that here, and it must be good water because there's palm trees and quite a bit of vegetation. Yeah, so this isn't your traditional hot springs that you think of coming just straight out of the ground.

This one is fed by an aquifer that's actually mostly groundwater. And it looks like an oasis. As I'm pulling in, I mean, it's the palm trees. It's really gorgeous.

makes for a really pretty place to start a trip. Yeah In the early 1900s, workers built a waterway to relocate Rogers Spring, a nearby Bluepoint Spring to farms near St. Thomas. When some of the men drank the spring water, something about it though, acted as a natural laxative and they lost a lot of weight.

After that, they called that water way, slim creek. This is the Overton Arm area, and next we're headed to Echo Bay. And that area is very well known for the fishing. It's fewer than ten miles from Rogers Spring to Echo Bay on State Route 167, otherwise known as Northshore Road.

It's hard to believe we're so close to a city with over two million people when you're looking out at what feels like such an oasis. feels like such an oasis. So we're here at Echo Bay, as you can see, and here, this is a great area for birding and it's very well known for the fishing as well. It doesn't matter what you do as long as you enjoy the view.

'Cause it's really pretty. Medley of the soundscape out here as well. You can just hear those guys. They're so happy are.

They are. All those birds. I believe most of these out here that we're gonna see are coots. Echo Bay is a location close to history.

Back when this was the Virgin River, John Wesley Pal's geographic expedition of 1869 began in Wyoming territory and traveled through what is now, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, before coming to an end, south of here at the confluence of the Virgin and Colorado Rivers. As I look out over this landscape, I wonder what it was like here back then before Hoover Dam created Echo Bay. This is absolutely gorgeous, but I know we have more to do. We do, we're gonna head up to the Northshore Summit Trail, where you can view the entire area of the Bowl of Fire.

(gentle music) From Echo Bay we backtracked the highway 167. It's not a terribly long drive to the Ring of Fire Trailhead. Only about 20 miles from the Bay, but I enjoyed the red rocks along the way so much, I wouldn't mind if it took all day. (gentle music) So where are we headed?

So we're going up the Northshore Summit Trail here and this overlooks the valley and that's a good overview of the area. So we'll kind of get a little preview of what we'll see up close in a little bit? Yeah, it's a gorgeous view. It's such a gorgeous place to be.

When you say desert, you think of just the desert, but there's so many different types of deserts. Absolutely, people kind of think drab, and this is gorgeous, bright red sandstone. I'm excited to get a different view of it. Well let's get going.

How far are we going? It's about a half a mile round trip up a steep mountain here. You know it's interesting 'cause we're pretty close to Vegas. And so a lot of times people don't realize that it is a remote area, that you have to take precautions because of it.

Absolutely, you know, it's really important when you're hiking that you bring enough water, you bring salty stacks and that you let someone know where you're gonna be. (gentle music) The North trail is short, but steep with an elevation gain of about 700 feet and just a quarter of a mile. As we climb, we can't help but look all around and take a moment to appreciate the striking landscape surrounding us. (gentle music) I always figure a little bit of effort makes a view even better, you know-- Absolutely, it's like the reward at the end.

(gentle guitar music) Wow, you did not lie about the view from up here. This is gorgeous. Isn't it stunning? All the red sandstone and the limestone.

So this all is wilderness area. And what that is, is we work to protect the area, to keep it unimpaired by human impacts. So when a person comes out to explore this beautiful place, what should they do to properly visit? So it's really important that they remember the leave no trace principles, that they pack in and pack out.

That they only leave footprints. And particularly in wilderness areas, be careful where you're walking. 'Cause you can actually destroy some of the habitat in the areas if you're walking on like crusted areas in the desert, stuff like that, make sure you stay on the developed trails. When you look out at this landscape, it's so beautiful and so dramatic.

And it's interesting to think of how fragile that means it really is. Absolutely, the desert is one of the most fragile ecosystems and landscapes. Just your footprints can leave impacts for hundreds of years. It's so easy when you see a view like this, to understand why people wanna come out and explore.

But a person only has to take care of landscape and they really got to take care of themselves, when they come out here, it's pretty remote. It's very remote. That's why it's wilderness area because it's been, it hasn't been impacted by humans. So there's no resources out there.

There's no water. There's usually no cellphones to go in wilderness areas. So you have to make sure that you let someone know when you're leaving, where you're gonna be and what time you're gonna come back and make sure you have plenty of supplies, salty snacks, more than enough water. I say a liter per two hours you're gonna be out.

And really, you know, probably of course sunscreen and all the things that you need, just to protect yourself. Absolutely and especially wearing layers, making sure that you've got different layers to take off. 'Cause you get hot and you get cold throughout the day, depending on the weather and weather out in the desert is the number one thing that people get in trouble with. So we're gonna go hike in this part of the area?

Yes, we're gonna go hike the south end of the Bowl of Fire. Looking forward to getting up close to some of these formations. Absolutely, well let's head on out and head into the Bowl of Fire. Let's go.

As we drive the short distance to the South side, the sky shows signs of incoming weather. Coming out to explore on a day when there's a little bit of weather moving in, isn't necessarily a bad thing as long as you keep an eye on the skies. We'll see how far we get though, before the clouds break and we start getting rained on though. (gentle music) So Chelsea said we were gonna do a little drive down a dirt road.

I have to admit, I didn't expect that this would be as much off-roading as it is. It's a little bit of a sketchy drive. It's very sandy, I'm glad I'm in a good vehicle. So this is a road to be a little cautious about if you come out to do this on your own.

So just a few miles down the road and then a few miles down that dirt, was that a road or just a wash? It's a designated road, but it is still a wash. And definitely not a road you want to be on when the weather is changing. Absolutely not, because this is a wash it's prone to flash flooding.

So you really wanna make sure that if you're coming out for a hike like this, that you're checking the weather that you make sure whether it's gonna rain or not that day. And it looks like we might have some rain today. So we really need to keep an eye on the weather today. And we've had a little bit of everything.

We've had some sun, we've got really pretty clouds and would almost be fitting if we got a little bit of rain. That'd be nice. So which direction are we headed off into? So we're gonna head a little bit east here and we're gonna kind of sneak around here and head into the Bowl of Fire over there.

So are there a lot of different trails or is this more an area of person just if they're being respectful can get out and explore? So this is a wilderness area and the Bowl of Fire is not a designated trail. It doesn't have a set area that you go to, you just kind of go out and explore. And that's kind of the beauty of the area like this.

Is you just go out and see what nature has to offer for you. There's not really a designated trailhead or anything here. So we're just gonna go and explore and kind of find our way into the Bowl. It's such a unique landscape out here.

It really is. There's the red sandstone and it leaves a lot of red sand as well. And you see all, if you look, you can see all the different colors of rocks, different types of rocks. Oh and then this is the crest that you've been talking about.

Yeah, that's a little bit, that's some newer crest, but there's definitely some you can see as you come along, you can see where it gets older and it's younger and you can see where water has come through. You really do feel like you're stepping into an ancient landscape. You can see all the layers of this terrain. There's so many colors and different types of rock.

Yeah, it's an ancient landscape. So you can see the different ages even. Like, you'd see some of the black rock and then the sandstone, limestone, all in pieces. (gentle music) So this here is a creosote and this is one of the plants that you see the most in the desert here.

And they've got oily bits on their leaves. And when you rub them or a cup your hand around them, it smells like the rain in the desert. And it's just the oils that the plant-- Yeah, it's the oils on the leaves that gives off that smell. It really does.

It smells like rain. That's really cool. Then you can see that little bit of oil that you have coming out their. Yeah, they kind of like shine a little bit, when you look at them in the sun and then if you're out in the desert, when it starts raining, next to a creosote, the whole smell kind of emanates the area.

That's really cool. I've hiked by them, I've driven by them a ton, I never even thought about a creosote. Yeah, it's one of my favorite little tips to tell kids when we lead hikes. That's like hand freshener.

There you go. We got in the dirt and now your hand smell good. As I look around, I noticed that in this environment, that seems so inhospitable, there's actually quite a lot of plant life that makes it's home at the Bowl of Fire. Oh, do you see this cactus right here?

Oh yeah, the little barrel cactus. I know that one. I love them when they bloom in the spring. And it's interesting this part of the desert, of course, we're not seeing the Joshua trees.

No, we're not at the right elevation for Joshua trees here. They like much higher elevations. So we're right on the edge of the Mojave Desert. So portions of Lake Mead do have Joshua trees, but not all of Lake Mead and this area does not.

Well that one's really pretty. Yeah, that's a really nice example. Well, and you see how it's kind of pinky purple when it starts to get cold, they preserve their needles. The purple color is a response to environmental stress during cool and dry conditions.

Other cacti do it as well, like agave and some aloe plants. They're so tempting to wanna touch. I know, but just don't. It would not be a good day for you.

You've mentioned a couple of times that it's an ancient landscape. It's really interesting to see that there's prime examples of it just under our feet in the rocks. - Absolutely, I mean, you can see evidence that this was once a seabed and this area is from the Jurassic age and it's over 500 million years old. So we're not necessarily walking where dinosaurs walked, but we're walking where dinosaurs swam.

Potentially yes. Yeah if you look and see here, this is a really good example of the red sandstone and then the gray limestone, and this is what this area is famous for. And that's what a lot of people think of when they think of the Mojave Desert. Especially Valley of Fire or Bowl of Fire.

Yeah and you just kind of got the stripes in through here and then there's more kind of up on the top ridge over there. And sandstone and limestone tend to be in the same areas, right? Yes. And is that because of the erosion or just the way it develops?

Just the way it developed yeah. Millions of years just create this landscape, so cool. Yeah, if we would have been here over 500 million years ago, we would have been underwater. It's kind of neat to think.

And it's probably part of that great variety of the rocks that we've been seeing because with the moving of the water, it's moved so many different elements and sediment and just overall that time. Yeah and that's why you see them kind of spread everywhere because they've come from all different areas of this valley. And here you'll find more diverse landscape, rocks, animals, and plants that you will almost anywhere in the world. And when you come out into this corner, you do, you feel so remote.

It's so quiet. It's really nice to get up off the road and get a little bit closer to it. And that's what wilderness is all about. Just kind of getting out and getting that unencumbered experience.

I'm glad that we were able to have a full day with those clouds coming in. As I end my day by driving the 35 miles to Boulder City, I'm hoping that the clouds will allow me another day of adventure tomorrow. (upbeat music) In the morning, I visit the Bureau of Reclamation Office, hoping to meet a hiking guide, but I get some bad news. The forecast calls for flash flooding in the area, which means our plans are canceled.

It's disappointing, but of course safety comes first. So I look on the bright side, the cloudy skies make for some really beautiful imagery. (upbeat music) So what do you do when you're in Boulder City and your plans get washed away by the weather? You improvise.

So we've had a bit of a weather issue with today's shoot. There was a lot of rain, so our hike has gotten canceled. And so we've got a little time on our hands. So what do you guys think, what do you wanna do?

Go to weird antique stores. (laughing) Why do you know there's weird antique stores here? 'Cause it's Boulder City. All right, man, I don't know.

It's really speaking to me right now. What's it saying? It's saying, don't let your hair grow out like Joey. (laughing) Zeppelin on "Vinyl," this is hard to come by.

Is that road music? This is all kinds of music right here. This is good music. That would be an awfully small fish on the campfire.

Yeah, it would be a panfish. (gentle music) So I found something I have to have. Boulder City is always worth the visit. And as you can tell, we've had some fun, but of course our plan trip got cut short, which can be disappointing, but it means that we have extra time to share with you some "Wild Nevada" moments that didn't get into previous episodes.

For example, on a recent trip to Tonapah, The Mizpah Hotel, we visited more hotel rooms than we had time for in the episode. Here's a special room for you to take a look at now. So I am going to introduce you guys to the Wagon Room. It's actually dedicated to Jim and Belle Butler.

Hey, oh, how cool. I like it. This is the Wagon Room. I like it, I have to admit.

This is my style. I could spend a night in here. This is how you cross the country on a wagon and just chill out. And somebody pulls you.

This is a great room. I can see why you like it. Yeah, blue turquoise like really makes the whole room like pop. It's true, I've never have gotten out of a bed in a hotel in the middle of the night and stubbed my toe on a wagon wheel before, but I could do it here.

As a kid, I had sheets that had little cowboys and horses on it. This takes it to the next level. Nancy Klein, I am telling you she is quite the interior decorator. Did she design all the rooms?

As far as I know, yes. And she's definitely got quite the eye for it. It's nicely done without a doubt. It's just like an adult version of a kid's bedroom designed for like cowboy stuff.

But now I'm a grown up. So I want real wagon wheels, solid wood, real old equipment from the old wagons-- Yep and the seat at the top, I love it. I don't recommend trying to make the bed 'cause it's really, really hard and it's a pain. (gentle music) (soft piano music) This piece right here was a kind of off the charts.

As far as gold goes. It was 5.3 ounces of gold per ton, which is spectacular. So and it came from the park? It came from the property here, yeah.

Wow, now could you actually mine here at the park-- No, not on the property. Because it is a historic landmark now, right? Yeah, as far as Nevada goes, it is an important Nevada historical landmark. We're working on getting it on the national registry.

So the gold and the silver tends to occupy within the same orb? It is very common. It's interesting when you think of the two most precious metals that we think of as precious and the fact that you're finding them together again and again. Right, right, right.

Collectors go crazy for some of these stuff. So many different types of rock. Yeah and what's kind of cool too, is when you look at it, the variety of color. Yeah, it looks like rock candy.

Really? - Go ahead, try it. No, thanks and I was gonna say a brain and that's brain coral. Brain coral, correct.

Does the azurite look that blue naturally or is that-- Yes, that's natural. That's crazy. And almost looks like it's painted. It does, it looks-- A lot of these stuff looks painted.

That's kind of cool. Dumortierite. Dumortierite. They use that in the making of spark plugs.

Seriously? - Yeah, so in Nevada here, there was a mine called the Champion Mine, Champion spark plugs. And they used the dumortierite in the porcelain. There's some in here that I've never even heard of.

(gentle music) Look at that thunder egg. I have looked through and I'm like I have a ring that has azurite in it and I have an opal ring. I'm going, I feel like I'm looking at my jewelry box. It's kind of fun, really cool collection.

The Tonopah Mining Park is a great attraction, especially for a rock hand like me. And I'm glad that we got to share a little more of it with you. Any time you travel, you don't know what to expect, especially from the weather, but that's just part of the fun out on the road. So we hope that you enjoyed some of these "Wild Nevada" extras that we were able to share with you.

And until our next trip, I hope that you can go and enjoy some "Wild Nevada" adventures of your own. See you next time. (upbeat music) Support for "Wild Nevada" is provided by the William N. Pennington Foundation.

The Nevada Division of tourism provides inspiration for travelers, interested in creating their own "Wild Nevada" adventures. More information at travelnevada.com. The June S. Wisham Trust.

Support for "Wild Nevada" is proudly provided by Land Rover Reno and Land Rover Las Vegas. Charles and Margaret Burback, Millie Hopper and Millard Reed. And by individual members. (upbeat music)