Rock ghosts and jailbreaks: back in Pioche

After the rock ghosts of the morning, the Ghost Town Art and Coffee Company was a lovely place to spend an hour or two. Housed in a late 19th century workshop with lovely exposed rough wood, it's now a gallery for Kelly Garni's beautiful found-object desert art. And it's a coffeehouse with a simple menu - hot meals cooked on the barbecue out back, and a range of coffees and frappe drinks. There was a lot to love here - we had a coffee in the morning then came back for lunch!

Ghost Town Art & Coffee has treasure within

First, the room itself has clear eastern light, and the walls are full of interesting objects. The artist's workshop takes up a big part of one walland his work is displayed throughout. It's a simple, open plan - I imagine it's very snug, too, on a cold winter day with the woodstove roaring hot. There are a few tables, and some reading material which we pounced on - two books on the town's mad wild west history, by local author Leo Schafer. They're both out of print and hard to find and we haven't finished reading them yet, so I guess we might be back there yet again some time. Also, the food itself was very tasty! I think my idea of a latte is not quite the same as the local one, but I really enjoyed the burger at lunch and the iced tea.

Then, the art itself appeals very much to me, with its re-use of found objects from ghost towns. I guess there's some question as to at what point such objects become of archaeological interest - it must be a sliding scale - but I certainly have a deep sympathy with anyone who picks up bits of rusty crap off the ground. He makes them into flat wall pieces, and uses cut pieces of old sheet metal as backs for vintage photos. The effect is striking, the colours vivid yet organic. The artist was kind enough to talk with us for quite a while about his finds and his work - I was glad to have been there at a quiet enough time for that. This is only one aspect of what he does, as he has an interesting history as a rock musician as well. I loved this profile article, a copy of which is on the wall.

But we weren't just there to loll about in coffee shops reading local history. No, indeed. We had museums to visit. (Also stopped by the old Opera House - as you do. A future post though, opera houses.)

The horsethief and the stars: back in Lincoln County

Arrow Canyon Range with pylon and agave

The drive up to Caliente is starting to seem familiar, and we look forward to all the little highlights of the road - the Arrow Canyon Range faults (we stopped and got some great photos this time), the sudden accesses of green as we come into the oases on the route north and east: Pahranagat, Ash Springs, Crystal Springs, Caliente, Panaca. The road passing over ranges of upthrust blocky hills, up and down but every summit a little higher than the previous one as we climb up towards the Colorado Plateau (further east than we will go this trip). The golden light of Friday afternoon turning to evening, turning to twilight as we swither between stopping sooner to have made camp while it's still light and continuing to where we had planned to stay. Resolutely declining all further diversions so we can at least pitch the tent while it's still dusk. Being glad I put the lamps where we will easily find them in the car in the dark ...

And finally, the last stretch of road. At this time of day, we drive with a careful eye out for deer crossing. This time, we turned east just north of Pioche and gradually climbed a small paved road into a river valley that has cut its way through lava ash tuff. The broad valley narrows quite abruptly and the road crests and dips like a mule trying to shake its rider. On either side, pinon and juniper, then a few houses, then volcanic rock soaring above on either side, grassy meadows, lines of trees showing where the water runs. Our destination was the Horsethief Gulch campground at Spring Valley State Park.

Easier to describe than to photograph!

The campground was more than half full already. We picked out a site, made camp, had a cold supper
by lamplight, and enjoyed a very mild evening - lying on a blanket and watching the stars brighten as the daylight slowly faded. We saw numerous satellites and several planets as well as the Milky Way. It was a perfectly clear evening. The late arrival of neighbours with trucks shining headlights straight towards our site put an end to our night vision; we went to bed.

Ranch Campground

In the morning, we went for a bike ride up the valley a couple of miles. (There is much more road available than we made use of.) We only went as far as the upper campground, where we saw swallow nests by the rafters of one ramada. There was nobody there. With its rock wall niches and slight air of overgrown neglect, the Ranch campground seems wilder and lonelier - and certainly quieter and less occupied - than its lower counterpart. Just goes to show, the name isn't everything.

Eroded holes? or MOUTHS?!!	Volcanic rock down a crazy steep hillside	Intrepid!

I have to describe Spring Valley (and the Eagle Valley reservoir) as yet another under-visited jewel in Lincoln County. The upper valley was seasonally occupied five thousand years ago or more, and then, much more recently, farmed by Mormon settlers in the second half of the 19th century. The park headquarters are in one of the old ranch houses. The lower valley, a couple of miles below the park at Ursine (great name!), is still farmed and many of the yards show a neatness that, rightly or wrongly, I associate with Mormon households.

Eagle Valley Reservoir

In the mid 1960s, the valley was dammed for agricultural purposes. The reservoir has since been
stocked with rainbow trout and we saw quite a number of people fishing while we were there. Theoretically there's swimming too, but up close, the water had a foul smell to it and what looked like an algal bloom - we left it to the fish and fisherfolk.

It is a beautiful spot though ...

Three views from our campsite at Horsethief Gulch Campground, Spring Valley State Park NV

... so beautiful that only a very great curiosity took us into Pioche where we spent much of the day.

Itinerary

Friday: 93 from Henderson to Pioche, 322 to Spring Valley State Park.

The Evening Star Mine - a mountain bike jaunt in the Mojave desert

One of our favourite desert spots is the Cima Dome / Teutonia Peaks walk in the Mojave National Preserve. We generally park at the Mojave Cross in the shade of a grand juniper tree, and there are graded dirt roads that stretch invitingly north and west towards Kessler Peak and the Ivanpah Mountains. We've looked at them on a number of occasions and wondered to each other what might be up there. Then, at the Kelso depot visitor centre, we bought Michel Digonnet's excellent Hiking the Mojave Desert - and it showed what looked like a pretty do-able mountain bike loop, a few miles up to Copper Cove, rich with old mines from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

So when a comparatively cool day came along, we thought we'd take our bikes out, ride up the Kessler Peak road, and see what we could find. We loaded up with plenty of water and a White Knight's pannier full of necessities from spare innertubes to a thermos of iced coffee ... and put the feet to the pedals.

Pancake prickly pear

The road was certainly not 2WD suitable, with a high crown that would have more than tickled Harry's belly, besides loose sandy patches and momentum-swallowing gravel. There had been a big storm through a few days before; the surface is quite possibly usually better than this. (Or then again, possibly not ... the National Parks Service has a budget backlog longer than the Teen's Thinkgeek wishlist and this is a wilderness preserve, not Grand Canyon South Rim.)

Anyhow, it was an interesting road. One of the things about this region is the vast variety of rock exposed by the upthrust and erosion as the crustal plate was alternately stretched, squeezed and twisted. Riding or walking through alluvial fan, you see just all kinds of things. Lovely glittering quartz and its friends are over-represented here. When I could drag my attention away from just surviving the next few seconds, or luckily was off the bike to walk it through some especially rocky or washed patch of road, the contrast of colours and textures were striking. The vegetation is lush this summer, Joshua tree 'forest' and all sorts of cholla and prickly pear cactus among other things.

Does this pic make me look intrepid? Nah.

And, disclosure: I'm a 'fraidy-cat. I wish I had Simon's gung-ho confidence on a bike, but I have to substitute grit, and walking the hard parts. I kept just locking up when the wheels started dragging in sticky, stop-you-instantly sand or washed out mini canyons interspersed with fist-sized chunks of rock. Embarrassing. Stressful. (It wasn't the terrain as much as the terror. Last time I came off my mountain bike I was off it for a year with a rotator cuff injury and my body still remembers this, since that year was only up a few months ago.) But I finished the ride, did not fall, did not die of heart failure, and did not swear at my long-suffering companion. Proud of self.

I was somewhat consoled for my timidity when we met a party in a big 4WD ute/flatbed. They were stopped in the roadway so we, necessarily, stopped behind them, and we chatted a few minutes ... they had been out playing in the desert too. And they thought we were "hardcore," riding bikes. Well - maybe. I don't feel very hardcore.

They headed away back towards the paved road, and we continued on our way. We didn't have a large scale topo map, so we were pretty careful to stick to the main road. As it rose up the hill we started to spot old mine workings, including a large wooden headframe. We kept on until we found roads heading up towards that wooden structure, which literally has bits swinging in the breeze.

This is the Evening Star Mine, where tin, copper, and tungsten were extracted. You can look down through the picturesquely rusting safety cap and see the vertical extent of the number 2 shaft - as well as get down into the trench between it and number 1. We saw the old powder house, the ruins of a metal cabin, and traces of several other buildings up on the plateau westward of the main workings.

 

Headframe for hauling and milling tin	Any old iron
The powder house	75 feet or more down #2 shaft
Safety cap, thx NPS!	Spot the turquoise blue pebbles, e.g. at lower RH

I was fascinated by the tailings - copper having been mined here, there are pretty blue and green pebbles, some with green crystalline layers. Many of the stone and rock pieces underfoot are a handsome olive green; others are white and glitter with tiny crystals. I even saw one pebble that was striped in four colours: ochre, deep grey, cream, and bright turquoise blue.

Before starting back, we stopped in the shade of a Joshua tree for iced coffee and fresh dates. And observed a fire ring nearby ... which means we can come back and camp some time!

As we came back down the rough road, the early evening saw the rabbits and other skitterers coming out to play. Mat time on the blanket next to Harry, and then we re-packed the car full of bikes and headed home through another sublime southwest evening.