Western USA 2003

Day 11 - Black Rock Desert

Burning Man to Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge

--Applegate Double Hot Springs, beautiful and deadly.

Still weak but feeling strong enough to drive I am faced with a hard choice. Return to BM and walk around trying to find Johns camp or continue on with my trip. With only one more night (tonight) left at Burning Man I make the difficult choice not to return, still not feeling strong enough to enjoy myself and/or walk around to find Johns camp, there is still a long journey ahead yet. I drive northward into the heart of the Black Rock Desert along the unmarked salt flat in the direction of Denio on the Oregon border.

It turns out this is the most difficult off-roading day of the entire trip. Most of it is primitive jeep trail with 5mph speeds. The rocks are sharp as razors and it is a miracle I did not get a flat, the Park Service recommends carrying 2 spares. It is a harsh dry place with no evidence of humanity for hours on end. It is Memorial Day Weekend the height of the park visitors season and in 7 hours I pass one other vehicle. To top it off, my gasoline reserves are low and it's not clear if I will make it to Denio and I am very worried the whole way of running out of gas and thus always take the shortest routes if not the most difficult. The above map does not show it but there is a maze of unmarked trails throughout the desert and the GPS map is guiding the way through some very offbeat jeep trails. In one area I had to open barb wired fences to pass including one with a dead coyotes hanging from the fence.

Applegate Twin Hot Springs are two small hot springs in the desert and was first discovered in 1849 by explorers looking for a new route to California and became a stopover for those brave enough to take the Applegate trail through Black Rock Desert, a southern alternative to the Oregon Trail. The water is beautiful and inviting in the hot dry desert, but like most things out here it is a death trap. The spring is 140 degrees and can cause 3rd degree burns in seconds. Many people have lost their lives falling in on the slippery sides according to an old rusty warning sign.

Arrive at Denio with about 10 miles of gas left in the tank, it was over 130 miles from Burning Man and took 7 hours, even though on the map it looks like about 60 that might take 2 hours. I was lucky. Denio is a one-shop town with restaurant, motel, gas station and garage run by the same owner. There is nothing else in the town except this one complex that seems to service hunters and truckers and the occasional vagabond, the owner tells me he is lucky to have gas at all the week prior he had none because the delivery service sometimes wont come out that far. Gas was over $3 a gallon. I eat a fresh salad and get a hamburger to go and head west again to Sheldon NWR to find a place to camp for the night.

Make camp at Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge at Big Springs Reservoir. Saturday night Memorial day weekend I have the entire lake to myself. And a safari of animals.

--Longhorns at Big Springs

Wild burros, wild horses, longhorns, giant hares and coyotes. It feels like an African watering hole lots of animal noises, the burros "heehaw" is a racket.

--Burro baby!

Sheldon NWR is part of the Great Basin which is a geographic area that runs from Oregon in the north through Nevada, east to Utah and parts of California such as Death Valley. The water comes in as rain or seasonal snow melt but never exits. That is why there are giant salt flats, the water pools up and has no place to go and drys out. Kind of like the bad drainage behind your house.. but bigger.

--Big Springs Reservoir, Sheldon NWR, Nevada

Posted by stbalbach at August 30, 2003 05:51 PM