My wife was on spring break, take me somewhere warm, she said, and my grandson wanted to go camping. I love exploring the back country, so I picked out Gold Butte National Monument, in Nevada, as our first stop. We left Eugene, at around 2:00 pm, driving over two mountain passes with packed snow. After a few of stops for fuel, to play in the snow, and grab a bite to eat, we made it to Fallon, Nevada after 8 1/2 hours on the road.
The next morning, we headed south on Highway 95. Last time we drove Highway 95 we were headed to Death Valley, so we decided to take a different route out of Tonapah toward Mesquite, Nevada. We turned on Highway 6, The Grand Army of the Republic Highway. At the abandoned town of Warm Springs, we turned onto the Extra Terrestrial Highway (ET Highway). The ET Highway runs along the east edge of Area 51.
We stopped at the Little A’Le’Inn in Rachel, for a quick browse of the Area 51 tourist trinkets, and to stretch our legs. We were hoping to see a few fast movers, but no airplanes today. Then we stopped at the south end of the ET Highway, at the ET Fresh Jerky Store.
Driving toward Vegas, we turned off and drove through the Moapa Indian Reservation, to Moapa for a final fuel up, before we went to Little Finland. A short drive north on I-15, we turned off at Riverside and then on the Gold Butte Road. Little Finland is also known as the Devil’s Fire or the Hobgoblin’s Playground. Little Finland, is not about the country, but about all the little fins of eroded Aztec sandstone in a “small area” of Gold Butte National Monument.
The Gold Butte road goes past several farms and ranches along the Virgin River, then turns east as you travel toward Whitney Pocket. You pass a small sliver of the Bundy Ranch, who are famous for the Malheur Wildlife Refuge standoff in Oregon, among other things, along the road (good riddance). When the road gets rough, I rate them by my average speed, in my Dodge 2500 PU, this was a 20 mph road.
About 20 miles of beat up, old broken down pavement and gravel later, you arrive at Whitney Pockets. Joshua trees became more common the closer we got, as well as buckhorn cholla, and barrel cactus. Welcome to the Mojave Desert, up close.
There were a few flowers blooming, but not as many as we were hoping to see. The weather was about 10 degrees below normal. Instead of highs around 70 and lows in the mid 40s, we saw highs around 60 and lows in the mid 30s. Maybe it wasn’t a lot warmer, but at least, the sun was out part of the time, and it wasn’t raining like it was at home.
After Whitney Pockets, it was about 4 miles to the Mud Wash Turnoff, then another 7 miles to Little Finland. These two sections of road were 10 mph road. We were being watched as we drove toward Little Finland.
Little Finland in southeastern Nevada is made up of Aztec Sandstone. The reddish color is from hematite (Fe2O3, iron oxide), which is natural “rust”. Aztec Sandstone is from the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic period and equivalent to the Navajo Sandstone, Nugget Sandstone, and the Glen Canyon Sandstone. How many names for an ancient sand dune can you have?
If you explore long enough, you can find all kinds of creatures or gargoyles.
I ate dinner after the sun went down, burger and rice in a tortilla, chased by an IPA, it was good. It had been a long drive to get here, but I was starting to relax. I planned to get up at 3:00 the next morning to try for some Milky Way shots. There is no cell service out here, except for an occasional 1 bar drifting in and out, so I had checked the cloud forecast, when we were in Moapa. The forecast showed 35% cloud cover at 4am. It is usually within +/- 10%, 25% works, but 45% doesn’t work very well for Milky Way shots. I was hoping for the max of 25%. The Moon was setting about 2:30am, so no moon light to wash out the stars. Took me a while to find the composition and set up the lights, but I think I created a good image.
The clouds moved in a little later, and this morning ended up being the only morning I was able to shoot the Milky Way on this trip. Hopefully I will have more opportunities later this year.
Back to the pickup, we sleep under the canopy for now, a short nap, then up at sunrise. Next year I will have a pop-up Bundutec camper, which will be easier than climbing over the tailgate to get in.
The sun had to climb over the Virgin Mountains, so we had enough time for some coffee, before we started exploring again. There are two ways to get to the main area at Little Finland, one is to hike in from the north, but we were camped at the south end, and ended up climbing a steep sandstone “ramp” past a palm tree to get on top of the plateau. The best light is in the late afternoon, but it was fairly cloudy this morning, so the light was not too harsh.
The palm trees are growing right next to the edge of the cliff, where there is a small spring at the base. It is hard to see from this picture, but it is about a 20-foot drop.
Next up is the Petroglyph area west of Whitney Pocket.
