Journey to the Center of the Wild: Quantifying Wilderness Quality in Central Nevada

By Shaaron Netherton, Executive Director
Photos by the Inventory Crew

Five hardy souls are spending their summer out exploring some of Nevada’s best kept wild secret places looking for BLM areas with wilderness character. The wilderness inventory crew will be providing timely and quality data about lands that have wilderness character to the Battle Mountain and Carson City BLM Districts. Both of these districts are in the process of creating new land use plans that will guide how these public lands are managed into the future. The Battle Mountain District encompasses about four counties in central Nevada (Lander, Eureka, Nye and Esmeralda). The Carson City District includes several counties as well (southern Washoe, Douglas, Carson City, Mineral and Lyon). The BLM is required by law to keep up-to-date inventories on all of the resources they manage including wilderness.

Funding for this effort is coming from a grant and is being coordinated in partnership with Friends of Nevada Wilderness and the Nevada Wilderness Project. The data is being collected using the BLM’s Wilderness Inventory Manual 6310. This includes providing individual route evaluations, photo logs, and details about each of the wilderness characteristics: size, naturalness, outstanding opportunities for solitude and/or primitive and unconfined recreation.

At the end of the season, the data collected by the crew will be turned into formal reports that will be given to the BLM along with briefing presentations to the BLM district’s management team and planners. The bottom line of this effort is to help identify lands with special wilderness character and protect them for recreationists and wildlife and for future generations to enjoy unspoiled Nevada’s beauty and solitude.

Journey to the Center of the Wild: Wes Hoskins on the Hunter Creek Trail

By Wes Hoskins

Renee, Michael, Sara, Paul, and Tim (photo by Wes Hoskins)

On Saturday, October 23, four volunteers from the UNR Freshman Honors program along with Renee Aldrich and I hiked up our favorite drainage, Hunter Creek. We installed 10 check steps and dams to help with eroded areas caused by: (1) the amount of people using the trail and (2) the fact that the trail resides on steep slope.

Paul hard at work on the trail (Wes Hoskins)

We also naturalized by revegetating 3 informal trails that led down to the creek. On this trail there are no designated routes down to the water.

Michael and Sara pause for a picture (Wes Hoskins)

We did leave a few places to access the water so that dogs and people may drink. We humbly ask that if you are on the Hunter Creek Trail and need to get to the water please don’t walk where a path has not already been developed. The paths that exist now have been consciously left there.

Tim and Paul create a designated path to the creek (Wes Hoskins)

I look forward to hiking the trail in the winter, but we won’t be doing any more work there until 2011. Thanks again to Tim, Paul, Sara, Michael, and Renee!

Would you like to see your trip on the blog? Write up a description of your hike and include a photo or two and email it to darcy@nevadawilderness.org and your adventure could be featured!

Journey to the Center of the Wild: Kurt Kuznicki and the Las Vegas Mountaineers Club on the South Loop Trail

By Kurt Kuznicki

We partnered with the US Forest Service and another volunteer along with the Las Vegas Mountaineers Club to work on the South Loop Trail in the Mt. Charleston Wilderness. Five of us camped overnight before the trip in the Cathedral Rock area.

We hiked up the South Loop Trail with the intentions of restoring the big switchback cuts just below the ridge, but turned around because of slippery, snowy slopes.

We came back down to around 9700 ft and started repairing switchback cuts on the way down. It was pretty chilly and the trail was wet and muddy but we were rewarded with beautiful view of a cloudy valley and a very snowy Mt. Charleston.

A great big "Wild Thank You" to the Las Vegas Mountaineers Club for coming out on a chilly damp day to make a difference by doing some trail work in the Mt. Charleston Wilderness!

Journey to the Center of the Wild: Wes Hoskins on the Pasco Canyon Trail

By Wes Hoskins

Friends of Nevada Wilderness ended its 2010 series of projects in Alta Toquima on Sept. 24-26, 2010 with a big logging and lopping event. We have adopted de facto the Pasco Canyon and Pine Creek trails which are adjacent to each other and sit on the east side of the Alta Toquima range.

The scenery at Alta Toquima (photo by John Fiske)

We first identified this trail-clearing project when while scouting the area in August, trying to find an erstwhile connector between Pasco and Pine Creeks so that we might create a nice loop section out of the two drainages. But we were thwarted during the scouting trip by wild rose, thick as kudzu, lashing our skin and downed willow trees blocking every turn. The connector, even though it is on the Forest Service visitor maps is not a viable route right now. We may still try to conquer the connector but that will have to be left for next year. The connector was not a viable one-weekend volunteer project so we moved on to look at Pasco Canyon.

The obstructed trail before Friends of Nevada Wilderness (John Fiske)

Hiking up 2 miles we found that an intense weather event had demolished the trail. Aspen, willow, and water birch trunks and limbs lay scattered around the area for over one mile.

The trail after the team cleared it (John Fiske)

Clearing out this trail to aid access for hunters and horse users was a perfect project, we decided to get it done the last weekend of September and we did it in a day with 6 volunteers. We logged out 217 dead, downed, and hazard trees, in addition we created a 500 foot re-route in an especially impacted area. This project was highly needed and the satisfaction level at the end was super-high.

Big thanks to Larry, John, David, Mike, and Phil (John Fiske)

I have to put in a good word for Phillip Breslow. An honors student at UNR, he came out to satisfy some required service learning hours, but he worked as hard as anybody on the trip. He loves to be in the backcountry and I truly hope that he sticks around. Soon, my generation will need to find wilderness champions from the next generation, if they are like Phil, Nevada’s public lands will be in good hands.

Phil earns some relaxation time after working hard! (John Fiske)

Just so you all know, the Pine Creek Trail out of Pine Creek campground is now cleared out and leads up to the Jefferson complex of peaks. Length of the trail is approx 12 miles roundtrip.

Would you like to see your trip on the blog? Write up a description of your hike and include a photo or two and email it to darcy@nevadawilderness.org and your adventure could be featured!

Journey to the Center of the Wild: Wes Hoskins in the Mt. Rose Wilderness

By Wes Hoskins

On September 10th-13th, Renee Aldrich, Miriam Smith, Buddy (Miriam’s Chocolate Lab) and I had a splendid three-night backpack through the Mt. Rose Wilderness. We were aiming to document some last-minute campsites and just get a last look at the wild interior of a place we may not see again for awhile.

Our group at the top of Relay peak

Friends of Nevada Wilderness has put on 9 monitoring and stewardship trips in Mt. Rose this year, and this may be the last one before the Aspen turns and the Truckee Meadows begins to tuck in its chin for the winter.

Renee, Buddy, and me at the rustic bridge crossing Gray Creek

As far as campsites go, we didn’t find much else other than what has been previously recorded. We did find some tracks from a motorized vehicle that ran through the meadow at the headwaters of Galena Creek. It’s frustrating to see that kind of needless damage in a sensitive place when the area has extensive signage prohibiting motorized use in Mt. Rose meadow.

Crushed corn lilies from vehicles driving off designated routes in the Mt. Rose Meadows

Backpacking on the Carson Range generally and Mt. Rose specifically is not as easy as one might think considering it is so close to Reno — a fair-sized population center.

Miriam swoops in and hangs the bear bag after I do the hard work

When a hiker gets into the depths of the range there is no real trail system, just a spider web of informal trails and old roads. Consequently, the first and second days of the trip for us required a little cross-country travel.

Sunday is hard for Buddy after the ascent and descent of Relay Peak. At least he has some awesome booties!

Itinerary
Friday: Thomas Creek Trail Head to Davis Meadow (10.1 miles, 2000’ gain)
Saturday: Davis Meadow to Bronco Creek (4.2 miles, moderate gain and loss)
Sunday: Bronco Creek to Gray Lake (7.7 miles, approx 2,000’ gain)
Monday: Gray Lake to Brockway Summit (10.4 miles, approx 1900’ loss)

If you have any questions about this hike or want to know more about the area you can drop me an email at wes@nevadawilderness.org.

Would you like to see your trip on the blog? Write up a description of your hike and include a photo or two and email it to darcy@nevadawilderness.org and your adventure could be featured on our blog!